ONGC to bid for Israeli oil and gas exploration

The Dollar Business Bureau

ONGC, India’s state run oil and natural gas corporation is planning to bid to explore the Israeli oil and gas blocks. This was revealed to the media by the Oil minister, Dharmendra Pradhan today.

This could be the first major deal between the two countries.

Dharmendra Pradhan had met his Israeli counterpart Yuval Steinitz on the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress soon after after Prime Minister Modi visited Israel and signed trade deals worth billions of dollars.

Israel had issued tenders last year calling for licences to drill 24 blocs of upto 400 square kilometres in size and Indian energy companies like ONGC had announced their participation.

According to an evaluation released by the Israeli Ministry of Energy, the Levant Basin contains yet-to-be-found natural gas reserves of 75 billion TCF and 6.6 BBL of oil.

When PM Modi visited Israel in July, both the countries had shown keen interest to broaden their economic base, rather than just sticking to defence.

India is keen to enter into an area where many oil majors are hesitant to do so fearing repercussions from the Arab countries.

Meanwhile, Indian scientists are conducting a commercial and technical viable analysis to participate in the bidding process. According to sources in the oil ministry, all relevant details of the tender – geological, technical were looked at and were familiarised with Israel’s oil and gas ecosystem.