“Definitely we are interested in the stake by being partners,” Oil Secretary S. Sundareshan, the top bureaucrat in the ministry, said in an interview in New Delhi today. “We are in discussions,” he said, without giving details.
The Russian government selected OAO Bashneft and OAO Surgutneftegaz as bidders to develop the Trebs and Titov fields, Yelena Koverga, a Natural Resources Ministry spokeswoman, said Sept. 27. A unit of India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp. was among six companies, and the only overseas entity, that submitted documents to bid for the areas.
Russia’s biggest private producer, OAO Lukoil, OAO Gazprom Neft, and BP Plc’s venture TNK-BP had also applied.
ONGC signed an agreement in December with Russian billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov’s AFK Sistema to study and explore opportunities in countries including Russia. Sistema controls Bashneft, which said last month it has the financial resources to bid alone for Trebs and Titov.
India, which is planning a sovereign wealth fund to help companies compete with China for overseas energy resources, has ordered state-run ONGC and Oil India Ltd. to each purchase at least one big asset this year, Sundareshan said in March. ONGC bought Imperial Energy Plc, which has oil fields in Siberia, for about 1.4 billion pounds ($2.2 billion) last year.
Russian Assets
ONGC Videsh Ltd., ONGC’s overseas investment unit, owns a 20 percent stake in Russia’s Sakhalin-1 field, where operator Exxon Neftegas Ltd. owns a 30 percent stake, according to the project’s website.
“We put in an application to be allowed to bid since we have assets in Russia,” Sundareshan said today.
Trebs and Titov, in Russia’s western Arctic, may hold more than 200 million metric tons of recoverable reserves, according to the Russian government.
ONGC Videsh’s Managing Director R.S. Butola declined to comment today.
