Indian oil PSUs win Venezuela block

New Delhi, Feb 11: Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and partners Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) have bagged a bid to develop a major crude oil block in Venezuela.

It is first major overseas success to the Indian PSUs since Imperial Energy Plc acquisition in 2008.

"The Indian firms will develop the Carabobo-1 block in Venezuela's Orinoco Belt with Spain's Repsol YPF SA and Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bdh," ONGC said in a statement.

According to an official, the group will pay $1.05 billion to Venezuela as signing amount and will initially invest another $9 billion in developing the block that can produce 400,000 barrels of heavy oil per day (20 million tonnes per annum).

The consortium would also extend some credit to Venezuela's state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PdVSA), which would hold 60 per cent interest in the project.

OneIndia News