Vedanta Holds Exclusive Rights To Brand ‘Cairn’

Vedanta Ltd. said Cairn Energy Plc. will discontinue the use of the brand name ‘Cairn’ as part of its corporate identity by December 2021.

The Anil Agarwal-led mining company is a separate entity with no connection to the Scottish oil and gas explorer, it reiterated in a media statement on Friday. The brand ‘Cairn’ is exclusively owned by Vedanta.

When Cairn Energy exited Indian operations in 2011 after selling its stake to Vedanta Group, it continued to use the brand name ‘Cairn’, Vedanta Chief Executive Officer Sunil Duggal said. In 2017, Cairn Oil & Gas Ltd. (formerly Cairn India Ltd.) was merged into Vedanta. Both companies, he said in the statement, are separate legal entities with different promoters.

According to Prachur Sah, deputy CEO at Cairn Oil & Gas, the disassociation was always a matter of fact. “This clarity will help us disengage from issues involving Cairn Energy.”

Vedanta also clarified that as the two entities are separate, “Cairn Oil & Gas does not have anything to do with Cairn Energy’s retrospective tax dispute case”.

This comes a couple of days after Cairn Energy said it plans to change name to Capricorn Energy Plc., effective Dec. 13. This follows an agreement at the time of the Cairn India IPO that the name would ultimately be changed, it said in a separate notice on its website. “Given the recent legislative change in India and our participation in the related tax refund process, we are now putting in place the planned name change.”

Vedanta Ltd., a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources Ltd., has operations across India, South Africa, Namibia, and Australia. It has a huge resource base — 58 blocks in India, including the 41 under an open acreage licensing policy round-I auction, five blocks each under round-II and round-III, and two awarded under the discovered small fields round-II.