OVL wins two oil & gas blocks in Colombia

ONGC Videsh (OVL), the overseas investment arm of India’s largest oil producer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), has won two onshore oil and gas exploration blocks in Colombia.

“ONGC Videsh has bagged two blocks in Colombia, block CPO 5 and SSJN 7. Block CPO 5 is in the highly prospective onshore Llanos Basin and block SSJN 7 is in prospective onshore Sinu San Jacinto Basin,” the company said.

The company has been awarded 100 per cent interest in block CPO 5 and 50 per cent in block SSJN 7, the release said.

Colombia had put on auction 43 blocks in four basins namely. OVL qualified as an operator along with other international oil companies such as Brazil’s Petrobras and Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s second largest oil company.

OVL already has a presence in Colombia with interest in a producing asset and three offshore exploratory assets, the release said. Further details like the work program for the blocks OVL won and how much of investment it has proposed was not known.

In September 2006, OVL in partnership with Chinese company Sinopec acquired Omimex de Colombia for around $850 million.

This acquired company, now called Mansarovar Energy Colombia, operates an oil field, which is OVL’s one of six oil and gas producing blocks that OVL operates.

With the two new blocks, OVL now has participation in 37 projects in 17 countries across the world.

OVL has also submitted bid to acquire London-based Imperial Energy Plc, which has assets in Russia and Kazakhstan. Last week, OVL received approval from Russian authorities, including anti-trust agency to acquire Imperial Plc.

A recent report by Ernst & Young, an audit and advisory firm, said this is the right time for cash rich companies to acquire overseas oil and gas assets, whose valuation have fallen by 40 per cent in the last four months.