Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) will pay about $425 million to acquire 50% stake in oil firm, Omimex de Colombia.ONGC Videsh (OVL), the overseas arm of ONGC, and Chinese firm Sinopec are paying $850 million to acquire Omimex de Colombia that currently produces 20,000 barrels of oil per day."OVL and Sinopec are equal partners in the acquisition bid," a company official said adding production can be ramped up to 1,00,000 barrels per day, half of which would accrue to OVL.The firm has onshore production as well as exploration blocks in Colombia with the net proven reserves of around 157 million barrels.Meanwhile, R S Sharma CMD of ONGC said the company will ship its share of crude oil from Russian oilfield Sakhalin-I in second week of November."OVL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, is planning to bring the first two cargoes of crude oil each with a capacity of approximately 700,000 barrels from Sakhalin-I project in Russia into India in October and December 2006," he said.OVL has 20% stake in the ExxonMobil-operated Sakhalin-I project in Far East Russia.The first parcel of 90,000 tonnes is expected at Mangalore port in second week of November, he said adding the crude would be processed at ONGC's subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL).
