India, China partner in $573m Syrian oil deal - more to come?

asiatimes: India, China pin down $573m Syria deal

India and China, the most aggressive shoppers for oil and gas assets in the world, and normally archrivals in the race for overseas oilfields, have finally come together to pursue their energy security in the global arena.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the two largest oil companies in the respective countries, announced on December 20 that they had jointly won a bid to acquire 37% of Petro-Canada's stake in Syrian oilfields for US$573 million. ONGC and CNPC, both state-owned, will have equal stakes in the al-Furat oil and gas fields.

"We are very excited about this breakthrough of joint acquisitions with CNPC," said Subir Raha, the chairman of ONGC, who maintains a very high profile in not only the country's oil and gas industry but the globally as well.

"CNPC and ONGC have been working together as joint operators in Sudan for the last three years. While we have worked together as joint operators and have gained confidence in each other's technical capabilities, we had never joined hands to own a foreign property jointly. This [will] be the first time, then, that an Indian company [will] acquire an oil property along with a Chinese company."

Indeed, as experts have said, although in monetary terms a $573-million deal may not be very significant, this one is significant because ONGC's overseas arm ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) had competed with Chinese firms for oil properties in Central Asia, West Africa and Latin America in the recent past. Read more