The annual bilateral summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin saw a strings of oil deals, potentially worth $2-3 billion. Russian flagship Rosneft, the world's largest publicly-traded oil company, formalised sale of a 10 per cent stake in its 100 per cent subsidiary Vankorneft to ONGC Videsh (OVL) for $ 1.3 billion. The deal gives OVL access to Rosneft's crown jewel Vankor in East Siberia, the largest onland Russian field developed in the last 25 years. It had made its last big deal in 2009 by acquiring Imperial energy, which has fields in Tomsk region in the Far East.
This was followed by a preliminary agreement for giving OVL more stake later and partnerships in other onland fields in Siberia and other regions of Russia. Rosneft also signed a preliminary agreement with a consortium of IndianOil and Oil India (OIL) for selling a stake in another subsidiary, Taas-Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha, which is developing the Srednebotuobinskoye field, one of the largest in East Siberia. Though the IOC-OIL combine seeks 29 per cent, which could be worth in excess of $1 billion. Rosneft sold 20 per cent in Tass-Yuryakh to BP for $750 million in October and is negotiating with another company.
