Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (ONGC) has failed in its bid to win a major oilfield in Iraq, receiving yet another setback in its quest to expand globally.
The consortium of ONGC Videsh (ONGC’s overseas arm), Oil India Ltd. and Turkish Petroleum Corp (TPAO) lost to another consortium led by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to develop the Halfaya oilfield in Iraq. Significantly, in the first round in June, OVL along with OAO Gazprom of Russia and TPAO had lost the Zubair oilfield.
CNPC along with its partners Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) and Total SA bid lower than OVL-led consortium. CNPC had offered to boost output from the Halfaya field to 5.35-lakh barrels a day from the current 3,000 bpd at a cost of $1.40 a barrel, while the OVL group had bid at $1.76 a barrel to boost output to 5.5-lakh bpd. The Halfaya oilfield has estimated reserves of 4.1 billion barrels of oil.
