ONGC Videsh may raise stake in $20 billion Venezuela oil project

ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) and its partners are mulling raising stake in Venezuela's $20 billion Carabobo-I oil project even as India looks at raising crude oil imports from the Latin American country.
     
OVL, which has 11 per cent stake in the project that will produce 400,000 barrels per day of oil (20 million tonnes) in four years, is looking at buying a similar stake that Malaysia's Petronas has decided to give up in the project.
     
On the other hand, Reliance Industries Ltd, which gets about 20 per cent of its oil needs from Venezuela, is looking at raising imports while state-run firms like Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL) are keen to start buying oil from the Latin American nation.
     
"Indian companies' representatives will visit Venezuela on October 7 and 8 and have some concrete proposals worked out," Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily told reporters after meeting the visiting Venezuelean Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez here.
     
Mr Moily, who extended an invitation to President Nicolas Maduro to visit India, will visit Venezuela later.
     
"We have excellent relations with Venezuela which we want to deepen further," he said. "We are preparing roadmap for largest democracy in the world to have largest business in Venezuela."
     
"We are definitely asking for more oil fields, more crude (from Venezuela)," Mr Moily said.
     
Mr Ramirez said Venezuela has a contract to sell 400,000 bpd of oil to India. "India has very very huge refining capacity which is designed to processing medium and heavy crude oil which we produce... We are talking to increase the quantity of oil exported (to RIL and other companies)."

RIL currently imports about 300,000 bpd of oil from Venezuela for processing at its twin refineries at Jamangar in Gujarat. It now wants to increase these volumes to the contracted levels of 400,000 bpd.
     
IOC wants to start importing 0.5 million tonnes immediately which it will raise to 1.5 million tonnes when its Paradip refinery is commissioned next year. HMEL too is looking at importing at least 2 million tonnes of Venezuelean oil for processing at its Bhatinda refinery in Punjab.
     
Venezuela has offered RIL 2-3 oil blocks including Boyaca 4 block and a separate section in the Ayacucho area of the Orinoco belt. Both these areas can produce 2,00,000 bpd (10 million tonnes a year) each.
     
Mr Ramirez said his country was also interested in getting Indian contractors to come and work on infrastructure projects.
     
On OVL and its partners increasing stake in Carabobo-1, he said, "If Indian companies want to increase participation, I would welcome it."