ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas investment arm of the oil PSU, is exiting the Satpayev oil and gas block in Kazakhstan, according to NK Verma, Managing Director of OVL.
OVL had completed the committed work programme to drill two wells but could not make a commercially viable discovery. The company has a 25 per cent participating interest in the block and this interest is now being surrendered back to the Kazakhstan government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had formally launched the drilling at Satpayev through a live telebridge in July 2015.
An ONGC statement in July 2015 had said: “Kazakhstan holds about 4-5 per cent of total world’s reserves of oil and gas in the Pre-Caspian Basin where ONGC Videsh acquired a 25 per cent stake in 2011in the Satpayev Offshore block.”