India has an estimated 200 Tcf of CBM resources. Currently, there is limited production of CBM in India, however, the country has taken steps to promote the development of the industry to address increasing household and industry demand. The Indian Government has formulated a development strategy focused on the award of CBM blocks in a competitive bidding process. Four rounds of bidding have been successfully completed with Dart Energy awarded five blocks to date.

Dart Energy's strategic themes for India:

• Take a multi-tiered approach by seeking greenfield CBM development via direct licence particpation, farming-in to existing CBM projects and establising coal mine methane/degassing projects.
• Leverage upon a foundation of strong government relations developed by providing high levels of technical imput to the government regulators and domestic companies.

Indian business development activities:

• Dart Energy is in advanced negotiations to farm in to one or more CBM blocks that were awarded to the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), India's leading state-owned oil and gas company, during the CBM I bidding round in 2003.  In addition, several CMM projects are under discussion with various Indian companies such as Tata Steel.

Dart's India asset portfolio