NEW DELHI : The overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s ONGC Videsh (OVL) will bid for blocks in Lebanon’s first oil and gas exploration and production licensing round, said Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas.“The meeting was important in the context of @ongcvideshltd participation in the upcoming bid round for offshore gas fields in Lebanon,” he said in a tweet.
Over three dozen companies have been pre-qualified as non-operators for the bid round. These companies have to submit their bids to the Lebanese Petroleum Administration on September 15.
Other companies pre-qualified as operators include Petrobras of Brazil, Total of France, Italy’s Eni, Petronas of Malaysia, Royal Dutch Shell, Statoil of Norway, among others. Lebanon, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt have been sitting on the Levant basin in the Mediterranean where gas fields were discovered in 2009. The blocks on offer include three bordering Israeli water.