OREANDA-NEWS. ONGC Videsh (OVL) signed Production Sharing Contract (PSC) for two shallow water exploration blocks SS-09 & SS-04 in the Bay of Bengal of Bangladesh on 17th February, 2014.

OVL along with Oil India Limited (OIL) formed a consortium (50:50) and participated in the Bangladesh Offshore Bidding Round 2012, launched by Bangladesh Government during December 2012. OVL/OIL consortium was officially notified as thewinner of two shallow water blocks SS-09 & SS-04on 20th August 2013. Subsequently, the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) was discussed and initialled on 19th September, 2013 and the Government of Bangladesh approved the award of the blocks to OVL/OIL consortium on 3rd December, 2013.

OVL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), the national oil company of India, and is India's largest international oil and gas E&P Company. At present, OVL participates in 35 projects in 18 countries including Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Mozambique, Myanmar, Russia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Vietnam. OVL is currently producing 160 thousand barrels of oil and oil equivalent gas per day and has total oil and gas reserves of about 433 mmtoe as on 31 March 2013.

ONGC's market capitalisation as on 17th February, 2014 was INR 2,37,629 Crores (USD 38.36 billion). It is the highest valued and the highest profit making Government of India enterprise. In the financial year ended 31 March 2013, ONGC Group had produced 58.7 million tonne of oil and oil equivalent gas (mmtoe) (approx. 1.2 mmboe per day), Turnover of INR 165,849 Crore (USD 30.45 billion) and profit after tax of INR 24,220 Crore (USD 4.44 billion). ONGC Group had total oil and gas reserves of 1,759 mmtoe as on 31 March 2013.For more information visit:www.ongcindia.com

Note: Turnover and profit data for ONGC presented in USD for illustrative purposes only and converted from Indian Rupee at the exchange rate of INR 54.45 for USD 1 (average RBI reference rate for 2012-13). Market capitalisation of ONGC as on 17th February, 2014 converted at INR 61.9495 for USD 1 (RBI reference rate of 17th February, 2014).