IOC-led consortium to buy 24% stake in Vankor oil field

 IOC, Oil India Ltd and Bharat PetroResources Ltd (a subsidiary of Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd) bought the stake close on the heels of ONGC Videsh Ltd picking up 15 per cent interest in Vankor for $1.268 billion. IOC and OIL will pick up 8 per cent stake each while the remaining 7.8 per cent stake would go to BRPL.

IOC-OIL-BPRL combined “signed the definitive agreement to acquire up to 23.9 per cent shares from Rosneft Oil Company in JSC Vankorneft, a company organised under the law of the Russian Federation, which is the owner of Vankor and North Vankor Field licences,” IOC said in a statement. 

The 23.9 per cent stake would be split in the ratio 33.5-33.5-33 between IOC, OIL and BRPL. The acquisition is subject to relevant board, government and regulatory approvals and is expected to close by September 2016. 

Rosneft holds 85 per cent shares in Vankor while ONGC Videsh Ltd (through its subsidiary) holds 15 per cent at present. Vankor field, located in East Siberia, is Russia’s second largest field by production and accounts for around 4 per cent of Russian production and currently producing about 422,000 barrels of oil per day.

 “It is the largest of the fields, discovered and commissioned in Russia during the last 25 years and is located in the North of Eastern Siberia in Turukhansk district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, 142 km away from Igarka town,” the statement said.

 The recoverable resources of the Vankor field as of January 1 stood at 361 million tonnes of oil and condensate and 138 billion cubic meters of gas. “With the closure of the Vankor deal, IOC’s equity oil portfolio will go up by 1.6 million tons per annum,” it said. Further, Rosneft has agreed to sell another 11 per cent stake in Vankor to OVL. Details of this deal are yet to be finalised.

The acquisitions have significant strategic importance to India, both in terms of augmenting energy security as well as enhancing its stature in the global political and economic arenas, the statement added.