ONGC denies $5-billion bid for ConcoPhillips assets

The oil and gas behemoth ONGC on day denied reports that the state-run company has bid $5 billion for the Canadian assets of ConcoPhillips along with Oil India and IndianOil, but said it is looking at international assets purchases.

Denying any credibility to the report appearing in media that it has already bid for the four CBM blocks of ConcoPhillips in Canada, ONGC chairman and managing director Sudhir Vasudeva said, "the source clearly is not ONGC. I want to deny that we have made any such bids."

Stating that the company is always on the lookout for opportunities to buy assets, he said all he could tell is that ONGC is looking at these four CMB blocks, which are up for sale.

"We keep on looking at opportunities in the market but it is not right to keep on commenting on them. As such deals are sensitive and there are confidential agreements to be signed so it is not correct to comment on them. But I can't give you a timeline, though it is going to be shortly.

"But I can categorically say that we have not made a bid yet for the $5 billion deal," Vasudeva said on the sidelines of an All-India Management Association summit here.

Media reports quoting unnamed ONGC Videsh sources had said yesterday that it along with Oil India and IndianOil has bid $5 billion for stakes in Canadian oil sands assets owned by ConocoPhillips.

According to the report, they submitted the bids in late July.

In January, ConocoPhillips put stakes in six Alberta sands properties on the block. They produce 12,000 barrels of oil a day from an estimated 30 billion barrels of bitumen.

ONGC Videsh, which is the overseas investment arm of ONGC, had recently bought the 2.7% stake of Hess in the large Azeri, Chirag and Guneshli (ACG) Group of oil fields in Azerbaijan.