State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) on Wednesday said it has signed a pact with Norwegian energy giant Equinor ASA for collaboration in oil and gas exploration and production as well as clean energy projects.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was inked on April 26, the company said in a statement.
The agreement is “for collaboration and partnership in areas of upstream exploration and production, midstream, downstream and clean energy options, including carbon capture utilisation and sequestration (CCUS)”, it said.
Equinor is the leading operator on the Norwegian continental shelf, present in around 30 countries worldwide. The MoU was signed during the visit of a high-level delegation of Norway to India.
Union minister of petroleum and natural gas Hardeep Singh Puri, Norwegian foreign minister Anniken Huitfeldt, ONGC chairman and managing director Alka Mittal and the executive vice-president of Equinor, Irene Rummelhoff, were present on the occasion.
Vessel hunt
ONGC is struggling to find a vessel to ship 700,000 barrels of crude from Russia’s Far East, in a growing sign that complex trades involving one of Moscow’s biggest partners are being interrupted by Western sanctions, sources say.
Several Indian companies, including ONGC, have stakes in Russian oil and gas assets, and India has been buying more Russian crude since Moscow invaded Ukraine, snapping up the popular Urals crude grade, while other buyers have shunned Russian exports. PTI and Reuters.
ONGC has a 20 per cent stake in the Sakhalin 1 project that produces a Russian grade known as Sokol, which ONGC exports through tenders. Sokol is mostly bought by North Asian buyers and loaded from South Korea. PTI and Reuters.
