As it is known, Mittal Investment Sarl, the holding company of Mittal family, had in April 2007 acquired Russian oil firm Lukoil’s 50 per cent stake in Caspian Investments Resources for $980 million. The acquisition was originally to be done by ONGC Mittal Energy Ltd (OMEL, equal joint venture with state-run ONGC Videsh), the India-born billionaire’s oil company, Mittal has been delaying transferring the assets to OMEL citing opposition to such a move by the Kazakhstan government. Lukoil’s Caspian Investment Resources had been created to buy Nelson Resources, a company allegely owned by president’s son-in-law Timur Kulibayev, for $2 billion in 2005.

Finally, as TradingMarkets reported yesterday, Mittal may not transfer Kazakhstan assets to ONGC because of new Kazakhstan energy law putting barriers for transfer of ownership:

“Kazakhstan announced that for every transfer of oil and gas assets from one company to another or change of ownership, they take half of the equity ownership… That is an issue,” stated ArcelorMittal President Aditya Mittal.

Kazakhstan’s new law stipulates its national oil firm KazMunaiGaz taking half of the ownership at every equity transfer, thereby nationalising most of the oil and gas field in the country over the next decade or more. Interestingly, the news report stipulates that ONGC “wanted to use Mittal’s clout with the governments in … Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan, to bag oilfields”. Lakshmi Mittal was indeed believed to have specifically good relations with the Kazakh regime, as it allowed numerous violations on his Kazakhstani enterprises, which, by the way, were bought at exceptionally underestimated giveaway prices in 1990s.

However, this seems to be not the first problem the Mittals are facing in Kazakhstan. As I wrote lately, the authorities blamed top management of the Arcelor-Mittal Temirtau for of bad labor and safety conditions, and warned Satesh Toparia, General Director of the company, that if Arcelor-Mittal fails to meet all requirements, prescribed by the government, Kazakhstan will cancel the company’s license.