India cool to Kazakh offer on oil field, but keen on oil

NEW DELHI: State-run ONGC Videsh has cold-shouldered Kazakhstan’s offer for stake in an oil field, even as oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Wednesday said India would study the possibility of importing oil and gas from the Central Asian country through pipeline or ships.
Sources said ONGC Videsh is reluctant to accept the Kazakh offer for taking 25% stake in Abai field on the ground that the projected reserve of 2.8 billion barrels of oil could be misplaced.The offer was made after the field was abandoned by Norway’s Statoil.
But the reality may be that ONGC Videsh may be getting back at Astana for blocking in July 2013 its $5 billion deal to buy an 8.4% stake in the Kashagan oilfield, the world's largest oil find in five decades, from US energy giant ConocoPhillips.
Kazakhstan exercised its pre-emption right to first buy the ConocoPhillips stake and then sell it to China National Petroleum Corporation. India was also dealt a raw deal by Kazakhstan when China was allowed to revise its bead to beat New Delhi’s $4.18 billion deal for buying PetroKazakhstan in 2005.
After a meeting of the India-Kazakhstan inter-government commission on Wednesday, Pradhan said ONGC Videsh and KazMunaiGas, Kazakhstan’s state-run oil company, would begin exploratory drilling in Satpayev field where the Indian firm holds stake.
He also said the two countries have decided to establish a joint working group to look at transport and logistics linkages.
Kazakhstan energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik said the central Asian nation plans to supply energy resources to a growing Indian economy.