Russian Prez supports OVL's Emperial Energy takeover bid

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today supported ONGC Videsh Ltd's 1.42 billion pound takeover bid of UK-listed Imperial Energy that has assets in Tomsk region of the western Siberia in Russia.     

OVL's biggest overseas acquisition so far is contingent upon approval from Kremlin.     

Petroleum Minister Murli Deora met Medvedev on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Dushanbe and sought his support of the deal, officials present at the meeting said.     

"The Russian President promised to support OVL and even called his energy advisor to issue instructions," one of the officials said.     

When contacted Deora said, "We had very good meeting with the President and I am very happy at the outcome." He refused to elaborate.     

If Kremlin approves, Imperial would be biggest overseas acquisition for OVL, the overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC).     

It had paid $1.7 billion to buy a stake in Exxon Mobil Corp's Sakhalin-I field in Russia and $785 million for a stake in the Greater Nile project in Sudan, both in 2003.     

The board of Imperial had earlier this week recommended OVL's 1,250 pence a share bid but it has to win approval of Russian authorities to materialise.

The Kremlin may want the Indian firm to sell part of the Imperial stake to a Russian state oil group such as Rosneft, which OVL is open doing so.     

Kremlin has during recent years increased its control on the Russian oil sector.