ONGC disqualifies Bidding for 2 Russian Oilfields

Russia’s subsoil agency Rosnedra late last month rejected the bid of Nord Imperial for the giant Trebs and Titov fields on the given ground:

• It lacked the financial capability to develop the Arctic fields.
• Failed to present the approval of the company’s board or shareholders for the bid

Trebs and Titov is Russia’s largest undistributed fields, may hold more than 200 million tonnes of recoverable reserves. Nord Imperial, a unit of ONGC’s Russian firm Imperial Energy last month submitted an application for qualification to bid for rights to develop the 1.02-billion-barrel Trebs and Titov fields in Timan-Pechora in northwest Russia.

Though on the other hand Indian executive said these are nothing but flimsy grounds to keep competition away. Rosnedra not only disqualified Nord Imperial , but also rejected the bid of other six contenders which include Russian firms Lukoil and Gazpromneft and BP’s Russian joint venture TNK-BP for unspecified errors in their applications. As per the sources TNKBP and Lukoil are planning to challenge their disqualification in court.