New Delhi: ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), is in talks wtih Russia's Rosneft to buy a stake in the Madagan-2 field in the Far East Russia.
"Russia is a valuable destination for us. We are evaluating a few opportunities for taking interest in oil and gas assets," OVL Managing Director D K Sarraf told reporters on the sidelines of the Petrotech 2012 conference here.
OVL, which is keen to get a foothold in the Arctic projects and expand in Siberia and Far East Russia, has been offered a stake in Rosneft-operated Madagan-2 field in the northern part of the Sea of Okhotsk.
"They have offered us some interest in the Madagan-2 exploration block... We are evaluating it," he said. "An OVL team has just returned from Moscow after studying data. I would say the talks are in preliminary stage."
Rosneft had last year got licence to explore in five areas in the Sea of Okhotsk -- Magadan-1, -2 and -3, Lisyansky and Kashevarovsky. The area is estimated to hold 2.8 billion tonnes of oil and oil equivalent natural gas.
Sources said OVL had in May written to Rosneft expressing interest in taking a stake in oil and gas blocks in the Russia's Arctic region which have recently been given out to US major ExxonMobil, Italian giant ENI and Norway's Statoil for exploration.
Russian firm had also recently roped in Statoil for four new joint ventures, including exploring the Magadan 1, Lisyansky and Kashevarovsky blocks that have recoverable reserves of 1.4 billion tonnes.
OVL has 20 percent stake in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas field in the Russian Pacific ocean and had bought Imperial Energy, which has fields in Siberial, in 2008.
PTI
