The government delay in approving ONGC Videsh Ltd's investment in two oil exploration blocks in Nigeria has cost the Indian flagship firm a majority stake, Subir Raha, chairman, ONGC said.
ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp, will invest close to $150 million in the seven oil and gas blocks it recently acquired in Cuba.
Sources said government headhunters Public Enterprise Selection Board had on September 29 last year, named Butola as its most preferred choice to head the nation's largest oil firm.
ONGC is raising debt for a spate of acquisitions over the past year
The Houston-based company is selling up to 50 per cent of its oil-sand reserves in Alberta. There are some producing assets and some exploration assets on offer.
ONGC Videsh Managing Director Ranbir Singh Butola was selected to head Indian Oil Corp, the nation's largest refining and fuel marketing firm.
ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp, is eyeing oil and gas properties in West Africa, CIS countries and Latin America with plan to invest one billion dollars a year in acquiring equity oil.
Seeking greater cooperation with India, Russia's Tomsk city in Siberia on Friday invited Indian hi-tech companies to establish innovative ventures in the region.
India has acquired a Russian oil company and bought equity stake in an oil field project in Venezuela through consortium route, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
Petroleum Minister Murli Deora will meet Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday in an effort to secure energy assets, including UK-listed Imperial Energy Plc.
ONGC Videsh Ltd has sold one million barrels of crude oil out of its share from a Sudan oil project to China for over $25 million, Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas Sumitra Mahajan told Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
India on Thursday described as 'matter of serious concern' reports that said some members of the Indian community in Canadian province of British Columbia received 'extortion calls'.
ONGC Videsh Managing Director R S Butola and Bharat Petroleum Director (Refineries) R K Singh are among the 17 candidates in the fray for the top job at Indian Oil Corp, the nation's largest oil firm.
Korean National Oil Corporation had moved court after the Nigerian government cancelled its licence for block 321 and 323 and decided to restore them to OVL, the overseas arm of India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. Media reports from Abuja said a Federal High Court restrained the Federal government from interfering with operations of the two oil blocks.
Indian flagship overseas explorer ONGC Videsh Ltd and its partners have signed an agreement to develop a $20 billion oil project in Venezuela that will give energy-deficient India 3.6 million tonnes a year of crude.
OVL can walkout of the estimated 1.3 billion ($1.9 billion) deal to acquire Imperial, which has oilfields in Russia, if less than 90 per cent of Imperial shareholders accept its offer of 12.50 pounds a share by Tuesday afternoon.
Iraq has invited Indian Oil Corporation, the country's largest oil refiner, to set up refineries in the war-torn country, and also participate in other downstream projects, a government statement said.
Imperial Energy, which operates in Siberia's Tomsk region and far eastern Kamchatka, has no strategic fields and deposits under its control, business channel RBC TV reported quoting sources in the natural resources and environment ministry. The London-based oil company owns a number of licences and hopes to produce 35,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of 2009 and 80,000 bpd by 2011, which could be directly exported to energy-hungry India.
Sudan, which had in 2007 defaulted on payment of installments towards the cost of building 741-km pipeline from Khatroum to Port au Sudan, agreed to form a working group to resolve the issue within a month, sources said.
In an effort to stem a possible counter-bid by China's Sinopec and others, ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas exploration subsidiary of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, has through its advisor Deutsche Bank approached the large institutional investors of Imperial Energy to acquire their holdings.
Kazakhstan will give ONGC Videsh Ltd an oil block in the Caspian Sea.\n\n
ONGC Videsh Ltd and its partners Indian Oil Corporation and Oil India Ltd have dropped plans to develop an oil field in Iran after the discovery was found to be commercially unviable.
China and Vietnam have an acrimonious relationship due to their standoff over the South China Sea, a huge source of hydrocarbons.
Iran had in September 2008 approved the commerciality of the discovery in the Farsi block. The discovery, which was subsequently named Farzad gas field, may hold inplace reserves of up to 21.68 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), of which recoverable reserves may be 12.8 Tcf. The Indian firm want to liquefy the gas and ship it to India in the form of liquefied natural gas.
ONGC Videsh Ltd, overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, is likely to invest $1.45 billion in an oil block in Iraq that was awarded to it by the erstwhile Saddam Hussein regime. The contract would be a service contract wherein OVL will be paid about 18 per cent rate of return on its investment.
Steel czar Lakshmi N Mittal is keen on selling half of his stake in a Kazakhstan oil field to state-run ONGC Videsh Ltd to tide over the severe financial constraint affecting his planned expansion in energy sector.
ONGC Videsh Ltd has much riding on $150 million investment plans in gas and oil exploration that Petroleum Minister Murli Deora says is critical for India's energy security. But apart from this, Myanmar apparently offers rich potential in engineering, fertilisers, tourism and pharmaceuticals for the private sector.
The Kazakhstan government has assured India that it will consider allowing ONGC Videsh Ltd to acquire a share in the assets of Canadian oil company Petrokazakhstan, a top government official said.
The proposed India-Iran Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement, which the two countries included in their joint New Delhi declaration in 2003, has run into a hurdle.
A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs was specially convened this morning to consider OVL's Imperial bid, as Tuesday is the last date for making the offer to the target company's shareholders. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chaired the meeting that had just one agenda and lasted one-and-half hours, but no official word was available.
The fall in international oil prices notwithstanding, ONGC Videsh Ltd will not revise its pound 12.50 a share buyout of Imperial Energy Corp Plc as the acquisition priced UK-listed firm's in-place oil reserves at $2.5-3 per barrel.
Reliance Industries Limited has hived-off its overseas oil and gas projects into a separate wholly-owned company based in Dubai and is eyeing a tie-up with ONGC Videsh Ltd to jointly bid for oil and gas opportunities abroad.
In Mumbai, ONGC Chairman R S Sharma confirmed Mittal's pullout. OVL had anticipated such a move and had a few months back sought Cabinet approval to invest all of the $400 million in the Satpayev on its own in case Mittal walked out.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp, Reliance Industries and Indian Oil Corp, the nation's biggest companies, are coming together for the first time, to bid jointly for a vast oilfield in Venezuela, which will require an investment of $16-18 billion.
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