SHARES in Cairn Energy have risen 4 per cent following news that more finds have been made on the acreage in India where the company made its name.
The company's former Indian subsidiary said it has made three discoveries in Rajasthan, where Cairn Energy made a series of bumper finds.
The latest finds include one near the huge Mangala discovery Cairn Energy made in 2004, which helped propel it into the big time.
The finds will be welcomed by Cairn Energy, which retains a 10 per cent stake in the former subsidiary, Cairn India. Cairn Energy has yet to repeat the success enjoyed in India elsewhere.
The Cairn India stake was valued at $1 billion (£610 million) in Cairn's interim results for the six months to June.
However, any pleasure at Cairn Energy about its former subsidiary's success will be tempered with frustration.
Cairn Energy is being blocked in its attempts to realise the value in the stake.
It has been barred from selling the stake by the Indian government amid a tax dispute in the country. This has been dragging on for months.
Cairn's founder, Sir Bill Gammell, spoke of his sadness at the dispute after retiring from the board following the company's general meeting in May.
Last month Cairn Energy said it was involved in interactions with the Indian tax authorities, without elaborating. The company also announced plans to shed an unpecified number of jobs in Edinburgh as it nears the end of a progamme of deep water drilling in frontier areas like Greenland.
It has not provided any further updates about the tax dispute or possible redundancies.
Cairn Energy says while operating in India it has been fully compliant with and paid applicable taxes under all legislation in force.
Cairn India said the three new oil discoveries in Rajasthan take the total number of finds on its RJ-ON-90 block to date to 36.
The announcement underlines the success Cairn Energy achieved with the drill bit in India.
In a campaign master-minded by former exploration director Mike Watts, Cairn Energy focused its attention on an under-explored area beneath the Thar desert.
It made the Mangala find on land bought from Shell for around £4m.
Cairn Energy sold a controlling stake in Cairn India to Vedanta for $5.5bn in 2011, and paid $3.5bn of the proceeds to shareholders.
Led by chief executive Simon Thomson, Cairn has used some of the proceeds to acquire interests in areas ranging from the North Sea to Morocco.
Shares in Cairn Energy closed up 6.5p at 184.5p.
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