Libya Shortlists ONGC Videsh to bid for the 4th licensing round

Libya Shortlists ONGC Videsh to Bid for the 4th Licensing Round

09-07-2007

Libya has shortlisted ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas investment arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), to bid for 41 gas blocks it is offering in the latest auction.

OVL was among the 35 companies including Gazprom of Russia, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Eni of Italy, Total of France, Gaz de France, BG, ConocoPhillips, Petronas and Algeria's Sonatrach qualified to bid as operator in Libya's fourth Epsa-4 licensing round.

The round covers 12 gas-prone areas containing 41 blocks and the auction closes on December 9, industry sources said.
Others that qualified as operator include Australia's Woodside, Norway's Statoil, Germany's Wintershall and RWE, PetroCanada, Spain's Repsol YPF, Denmark's Maersk, Brazil's Petrobras, Russia's Lukoil, Japan's Inpex, Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production, Canada's Talisman, Pakistan Petroleum and Pakistan's Oil & Gas Development Co.

To qualify as operators, companies had to demonstrate they have at least 2 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves and output of at least 200 million standard cubic feet per day.

Besides, a combine of Indian Oil Corp and Oil India Ltd was among 21 companies qualified to bid as investors (minority partner with one of the qualified operator) in the auction.

The 21 companies qualified to bid as investors included a a host of Japanese firms including Itochu, Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Nippon Oil. Korea Gas, Italy's Edison, the UAE's Mubadala Development, the UK's Centrica and Burren Energy, Spain's Union Fenosa and Germany's E.On were also in the list.