State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Company (ONGC)’s overseas operations arm is in advanced talks to acquire operatorship of crude oil projects in Venezuela’s San Cristobal and Carabobo projects and expects to finalise the arrangement in the next three to six months, Anupam Agarwal, Director (Finance) told analysts in a post-results call Friday.
ONGC Videsh, the state-owned explorer’s foreign operations arm, holds 40% interest in the San Cristobal project with the remainder belonging to the Latin American country’s national oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA).
It holds an 11% stake in the Carabobo project.
“At partner levels and also with the [Venezuelan] government, discussions are on. We have got the necessary approvals and OFAC clearances for new arrangements, [and] they are at advanced stage,” he said, adding, “We expect in the next three to six months’ time, those agreements will be in place and we will be San Cristobal’s whole operator and in case of Carabobo’s joint operators. We are ready to start working on those fields.”
Further, responding to a query about status of the over $500 million dividends stuck in the Latin American country, Mr. Agarwal stated that they would be recouped post they have acquired the operatorship.
“In the earlier system, we did not have offtake rights. The crude oil sale rights were with the national oil company of Venezuela and that is why the situation of dividend getting stuck up happened,” he explained, adding that under the new arrangement, ONGC Videsh would be operating the projects, offtake the produce, sell and discharge fiscal-related responsibilities towards the Venezuelan government with the rest being with ONGC Videsh.
Further, providing an update on their dividends stuck in Russia, Mr. Agarwal informed that the company has utilised the dividends stuck in the Vankor project to meet their abandonment fund liabilities in the Sakhlin-1 project.
Separately, Mr. Agarwal stated that oil production from their Sakhalin asset averaged 183 thousand barrels per day – almost similar to the levels before the Russia-Ukraine conflict that commenced 2022.
ONGC Videsh re-entered the project in December 2025.
Published – November 06, 2026 09:30 pm IST
