OVL denies bidding for Yukos asset

ONGC Videsh (OVL), the foreign arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), has categorically denied its involvement in the auction of the core assets of the embattled oil major Yukos last Sunday even as experts and the media remain clueless about an obscure company that walked off with the deal.

"We did not take part in the auction of Yuganskneftegaz in any form,  and don't have the faintest idea who bought it," OVL's regional manager in New Delhi A Verma was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti agency.

Local media, which remains clueless about the Baikal Finance Group which walked off with Yuganskneftegaz, had suggested that either OVL or China's CNPC Corporation could have used it as a front company.

Petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar was reported to have discussed the Yuganskneftegaz auction with Russian President V Putin in New Delhi earlier this month.

In Sunday's auction, representatives of Gazpromneft, the oil unit of Gazprom, and Baikal lodged bids at the starting minimum price of $8.8 billion.

However, the minimum price was confirmed only by Baikal, which later offered the only higher bid of $9.4 billion, according to the sale organiser, the Federal Property Fund.

Observers believe that the Baikal Group could be an alternative vehicle for Gazprom with sources of funding that are different from those initially prepared.