New Delhi, Dec. 11 (PTI): Indian Oil Corporation has offered $1.34-1.44 billion to acquire Canadian oil firm Niko Resources’ Indian assets. These include a 10 per cent stake in Reliance Industries’ gas-rich D6 block in the Bay of Bengal.

However, the Canadian firm wants a 20-30 per cent premium, sources close to the deal said.

IOC has appointed Citigroup as its financial adviser for the takeover bid and has code-named it as Project Pluto.

Sources said Citigroup recently told the upstream committee of the IOC board that Niko “had responded positively to its revised offer of $1340-1440 million dollar”.

Niko has a 10 per cent stake each in Reliance-operated block D6, which has been certified to hold 9.7 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas reserves, and block NEC-25 off the Orissa coast that holds 1.2 tcf of reserves.

It also has a 33.33 per cent stake in Hazira gas field, which produces 150 million standard cubic feet per day of gas, and a 100 per cent holding in Surat gas field.

The Canadian company, the sources said, did not want to sell its Bangladesh assets that include the Feni oil and gas field, and a highly-prospective block in the eastern offshore it won in the NELP-V round this year.