Japan's Inpex to acquire 26 % in ONGC’s KG basin deep sea block

Inpex Corp, Japan's largest oil company, will acquire a 26-per cent stake in state-owned Oil & Gas Corp's Krishna Godavari basin deep sea block, for an undisclosed sum.

Post closing, ONGC will hold a 34-per cent stake and remain the operator in the offshore exploration block KG-DWN-2004/6, while Inpex will hold 26 per cent, Gail (India), Gujarat State Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum and Oil India will hold 10 per cent each.

Without giving financial terms of the deal, ONGC said in a statement, "ONGC and Inpex have entered into a strategic partnership for exploration of hydrocarbons in one of the acreages in KG basin."

The ONGC-led consortium got the block under the sixth round of New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) in 2007. The ultra deepwater block is located around 300kms off the coast of Andhra Pradesh coast and covers an area of 10,907sq kms.

"ONGC has completed most of the phase-I exploration programme in the block except drilling of one well which is to be taken up," the company said.

''Participating in  the Block with high potentiality will  be expected to  contribute to continuous enhancement of INPEX's E&P activities as one of the measures for growth as addressed in ''Medium-to Long Term Vision of INPEX'' in May 2012, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement.