The Hindu Business Line : OVL awarded offshore exploration block in Vietnam

VIETNAM'S national oil company Petro Vietnam has awarded the offshore exploration block 128 in Phu Khanh Basin to ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) with 100 per cent participating interest and operatorship.

According to a statement issued here on Monday by the parent ONGC, with this award OVL is now an operator in five blocks in four countries.

Mr Subir Raha, Chairman, OVL, said with the award of blocks 127 and 128 for offshore exploration in Vietnam, the company is consolidating its presence with 45 per cent participating interest in the producing properties of Lan Do and Lan Tay offshore blocks.

Earlier, ONGC Videsh was awarded block 127 in the same basin, just north of block 128, also with 100 per cent participating interest and operatorship. These awards came out of global competitive bidding for nine offshore exploration blocks in the Vietnam 2004 Licensing Round. OVL has been awarded both the blocks it had bid for, the statement said.

Block 128 is located in a depth of more than 400 metres with 7,058-sq.km. area, the statement said adding that two prospects have been identified with estimated in-place resource of around 190 million metric tonnes.

OVL has now operatorship in four offshore exploration blocks - Farsi in Iran, Najweet Najeem in Qatar, and 127 and 128 in Vietnam. It is the operator for onshore exploration block 81-1 in Libya.

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