Indian firms to tie with Iraq on oil

Indian public sector firm Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Videsh Ltd. (OVL) and a private sector firm Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) could soon tie up to strike a strategic relationship for overseas gas and oil projects, national daily, The Hindu, reported Monday.

The newspaper reported that OVL is keen to revive talks with Iraq to get a stake in its Tuba oilfield. The newspaper quoted an unnamed official from OVL as saying that they were open to more of such partnerships with RIL.

It is reported that OVL had already completed negotiations with the Iraqi Government for the stake in the oilfield but the deal could not reach its final stage since the then Saddam government got overthrown at the time.

Had that deal gone through, OVL and RIL would have held 30 percent stake each in the oilfield. The remaining 40 percent stake would have been held by Algerian firm Sonatrach.

The newspaper reported that Indian Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, during his talks with the Iraqi oil Minister Hussain Al Shahristani, at the Second Asian Ministerial Energy Roundtable in Riyadh recently, had raised the issue of OVL's participation in Iraq's upstream oil sector.

The newspaper said the OVL would now resume talks with Iraq on the issue.

Indian oil firms are under a mandate to seek oil equity abroad since the country is heavily dependent on imports.

Source: Xinhua