How much value Russia is adding to ONGC subsidiary OVL's product basket

ONGC subsidiary OVL derives significant value from its oilfields in that country

Old timers in Oil and Natural Gas Corpora­tion (ONGC) still remember how in early 2000 its overseas subsidiary, ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), was on the verge of closure.

Though OVL was set up in 1965, the only discovery the company had made till then was in Vietnam offshore, with more investment needed to monetise it. In 2001, when OVL started looking for new blocks abroad, the company’s previous acquisition was 13 years old. But at the turn of the century, OVL bought a 20 per cent stake in the giant Sakhalin-1, an oilfield owned by subsidiaries of Russian state-owned Rosneft.

The block