OVL promises growth opportunities to Imperial staff

India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, which recently tookover Imperial Energy, has assured the employees of Russia-focused company that it will be business as usual even after the change in management.

ONGC Videsh Ltd Managing Director and CEO R S Butola, who is now the Chairman of Imperial Energy, in a communication to company's employees promised growth opportunities as well as a risk-reward relationship.

OVL, the overseas investment arm of the state-owned ONGC, is not retrenching Imperial employees and has decided to retain the company's Moscow office as well as its CEO and CFO.

Butola, however, warned of challenges poised by crude oil prices plummeting to below $40 a barrel and the gap between planned and actual output from Imperial's fields in Tomsk region of western Siberia.

"While your efforts have contributed to creating crude oil processing facilities of about 72,000 barrels of oil per day capacity, the production effort has yet to yield commensurate results," he wrote on February 20.

"By the end of the year 2008, the company had planned to produce about 25,000 bpd. In spite of utilising the planned physical inputs, the actual production hovers around 7,000 bpd, a big gap between the plan and actual."

After the takeover that cost $2.1 billion, ONGC plans to delist Imperial from London Stock Exchange on March 9.