Chins, India To Operate In Colombia

China and India have come together once again to jointly bid for a stake in an oil venture in faraway Colombia for some $800 million, said an Indian official Friday.

China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec) and ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas arm of Indian state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp, have jointly submitted a bid to acquire stake in the Ominex de Colombia - a subsidiary of the Texas-based Ominex Resources Inc.

"Ominex de Colombia owns a 50-percent stake in around oilfields in Colombia. The remaining stake is held by the Colombian nationaloil company - Ecopetrol," Indo-Asian News Service quoted the Indian official as saying.

The company has net proven reserves of around 157 million barrels of oil and gets about 9,450 barrels of oil per day as its share from the Colombian fields.

In December last year, China National Petroleum Co International and OVL had jointly acquired 37-percent stake of a Canadian oil company Petro Canada in a Syrian oilfield for 484 million U.S. dollars.

OVL and Sinopec submitted their bid last week and plan to hold equal stakes in Ominex de Colombia. OVL has around two-dozen assets overseas in 13 countries.

If Ominex agrees on the bid price then the matter will go for approval of empowered committee of secretaries and the cabinet, the official said.