THE Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGc)-Videsh Ltd, currently operating in Vietnam, has discovered gas in the offshore area with reserves estimated at three trillion cubic metres which would help trigger a range of activities for Indian companies in the downstream and midstream areas, besides allowing ongc to plough back revenues from this field for sustaining its stalled operation in Vietnam for oil discovery, the visiting Indian ambassador to Vietnam, Aftab Seth, said. Seth said he has held discussions with the Union petroleum secretary, T S Vijayaraghavan, about a plan worked out a few years ago whereby experiments have been conducted to see whether Vietnamese crude oil would suit Indian refineries at Haldia, Visakhapatnam and Chennai. He declined to elaborate on this further.

Referring to ONGC-Videsh's gas find, he said, once the gas price issue is resolved, which is imminent, revenues from this operation will flow substantially. ONGC-Videsh holds 55 per cent stake, five per cent each by British Petroleum and Norwegian Stat Oil with the balance by the state-owned Petro Vietnam in this venture, ongc would be in a position to expand its activities and plough back some of the profits from the sale of gas.