OVL-OIL to buy Videocon stake in Mozambique field for $2.5 bn

In the third acquisition in 10 months, Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) will buy Videocon Industries' 10 per cent stake in a giant gas field in Mozambique for about USD 2.5 billion.
ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas arm of the state explorer, will buy Videocon Mozambique Rovuma 1 Ltd's 10 per cent stake in the Rovuma-1 field for USD 2.475 billion, the company said in a statement.
Rovuma field may hold as much as 65 Trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of inplace gas reserves, more than 10 times the reserves in Reliance Industires' eastern offshore KG-D6 fields.

The two firms will form a new venture to acquire Videocon's unit. OVL will hold 60 per cent of the venture and OIL the remaining 40 per cent, the statement said.
The transaction is expected to close in the last quarter of 2013.
OVL-OIL need approval of the Mozambique and Indian government, regulatory permissions and existing partners in Rovuma-1 area waiving off their pre-emption rights for the deal to go through.

Since September last year, OVL has announced deals worth about USD 8.5 billion.
In March, it completed acquisition of Hess Corp's 2.7 per cent stake in Azerbaijan's largest oil field and an associated pipeline for USD 1 billion.

Last November, it announced a USD 5 billion purchase of ConocoPhillips's 8.4 per cent stake in Kazakhstan's Kashagan project, touted as the biggest oil find since the 1960s when it was discovered in 2000. It is awaiting Kazaksthan government's approval for the deal.
Rovuma-1 has the potential to become one of the world's largest LNG producing areas by 2018, the statement said.