Santos pulls out of Indian oil and gas blocks.

Close on the heels of mining giant BHP Billiton deciding to quit India, Australia's Santos wants to exit its two oil and gas exploration block in Bay of Bengal due to delays in getting approvals to start work.

Santos, Australia's third-largest oil and gas producer, was in February 2007 awarded two blocks south-east of Kolkata, has written to the Government saying it has not been able to carry out exploration in the area because of defence restrictions and maritime boundary dispute with Bangladesh.

It offered to surrender the blocks NEC-DWN-2004/1 and NEC-DWN-2004/2 on which it has already spent $60 million.

PTI