ONGC Videsh Ltd and Oil India Ltd (OIL) have won two shallow water oil and gas blocks in Bangladesh, Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily said on Friday.
The 50:50 joint venture of OVL, the overseas arm of state- owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), and OIL “has been awarded shallow water blocks SS-4 and SS09 in Bangladesh,” he told reporters in New Delhi, reports the PTI.
The production sharing contract (PSC) for the two blocks was initiated in September and formal signing will happen sometime this month, he said.
Moily said OVL which had gone into a shell after its 2008 acquisition of Russia-focused Imperial Energy was criticised, has turned into an aggressive competition on the international scene during past one year.
This month it has been awarded two onshore blocks – B2 (Zebyutaung-Nandaw) and EP-3 (Thegon-Shwegu), in Myanmar. These came close on the heels of OVL exercising its pre-emption rights to snap 12 percent more stake in a Brazil’s BC-10 oil block for USD 529.03 million.
With this OVL’s stake in the block, where Royal Dutch Shell is the operator, has increased to 27 percent, he said adding this would add 6,000 barrels of oil production to the company’s kitty.
OVL presently holds 15 percent interest in the block.
In Colombia, OVL teamed up with Sinopec of China to grab two oil and gas exploration blocks.
The deals came on back of OVL and OIL snapping a 10 percent stake of Videocon in a gas block in Mozambique for USD 2.48 billion.
OVL followed this by buying another 10 percent from Anadarko of US for USD 2.64 billion.
The Mozambique block is estimated to hold 35 to 65 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves which can be shipped to energy hungry India, he said.
Prior to that, OVL acquired 2.7213 percent stake in a the producing Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field in Azerbaijan for USD 1 billion, Moily said adding the field will add 0.9 million tons per annum of production to OVL’s kitty.
In Kazakhstan, OVL had signed to acquire 8.4 percent of ConocoPhillips in the Kashagan oilfield for USD 4.5 billion but the deal fell because Kazakhstan blocked it, he said.
“We will go more aggressively in acquisition of oil and gas properties abroad. We will go before China reaches,” he said.
Source: UNBConnect