Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd, the state-owned refining and marketing oil major, on Tuesday submitted a financial bid to acquire Tata Petrodyne, the wholly-owned oil exploration arm of Tata Power.

The corporation informed the Bombay Stock Exchange about submission of its bid for Tata Petrodyne.

The bid follows within a week of the corporation's chairman and managing director S Behuria announcing it was intently looking at moving upstream into oil exploration.

Tata Power had acquired Tata Petrodyne from Tata Industries in 2000 for Rs 145 crore (Rs 1.45 billion). It had then indicated that move was synergistic with its other activities and would enable it to emerge as a fully integrated energy company.

Analysts said the sale could fetch Tata Power substantially more than its investment, as Tata Petrodyne is understood to have made significant headway in exploration in the last two years.

By submitting the financial bid, BPCL has taken a step towards tying up crude supply security in the highly volatile oil market.

In fact, BPCL is planning to invest Rs 1,000-1,500 (Rs 10-15 billion) crore over the next five years in exploration and production business.

Behuria had said last week it was imperative for the company to enter oil and gas exploration, production and development business to "maintain its share in the energy market in the country."

However, the subsidiary has been put on block for sometime now. FA Vandrevala, managing director of Tata Power, last week had said it has already received 12 expressions of interest for Tata Petrodyne.

Companies who have evinced interest in Tata Petrodyne are Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Cairn Energy, Hardy Oil and Hindustan Oil Exploration Company.

Tata Petrodyne has interests in four blocks, a 21 per cent stake in CY-OS/90-1 (PY-3), a 10 per cent interest each in CB-OS/1 and CB-OS-2 (development) blocks while 15 per cent stake in CB-OS/2 (exploration).