HPCL keen to pick up stake in Russian oil fields

Public sector oil marketer Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) is ready to throw its hat in the ring for a stake in Russian oil fields, a senior official at the company confirmed on Monday.

This will make HPCL the fourth PSU oil company to seek crude in the oil-producing fields of Russia.

Speaking to

BusinessLine , the official with HPCL who did not want to be named, said, “Besides the major Vankor cluster, there are satellite fields which all of the PSUs, including HPCL, are looking at for picking up stakes. We are evaluating opportunities, but nothing has been decided yet.” In 2015, ONGC Videsh Ltd, an arm of PSU explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp, bought 15 per cent stake in Russia’s Vankor fields for $1.26 billion. Then, in 2016, it topped up its stake with another 11 per cent for $930 million.

Later, the other PSU oil companies – Oil India, Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat PetroResources (part of BPCL) – joined ONGC to increase India’s participation in the Siberian oil and gas fields by agreeing to pick 23.9 per cent stake in Vankorneft (a subsidiary of Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft that owns the Vankor cluster).

This raised India’s total holding in the Vankor fields to 49.9 per cent.

The fields in question are a cluster of three small fields – Suzunskoye, Tagulskoye and Lodochnoye – around Vankor in eastern Siberia. The cluster is Rosneft’s second largest field in terms of production and according to reports, it accounts for about 4 per cent of the country’s annual oil production, pumping out 421,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

While HPCL will now be the last of the big oil PSUs looking at investments in Russia, the price of new investments are likely to be higher than in the past with benchmark crude oil prices on the rise again. Brent crude, for instance, is now at about $45 a barrel, rebounding from as low as $27 in early 2016.

However, the PSUs’ move to pour money into producing fields eliminates the need for a gestation period for their investments, bringing almost near-immediate returns.