ONGC Videsh bids to retake 20 per cent stake in Sakhalin-1

ONGC Videsh Limited, the overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corpo­ration (ONGC), is making a proposal to retake a 20 per cent stake in Russia’s Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project in the far east. Earlier this mon­th, Exxon Neftegaz, a regional subsidiary of US supermajor Exxon­Mobil, was disbanded as operator of the Sakhalin-1 and all of its assets and equipment were transferred to a new operator. The other former foreign shareholders in the project, Japan’s Sodeco consortium and ONGC Videsh, have to apply to the Russian government to regain their shareholdings in the project. In addition, OVL is in the process of applying to regain the 20 per cent stake it held in the project.