ONGC Operations in South Sudan

=Activities in South Sudan= ONGC's operations in Sudan are run through ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL), which holds a 25% share in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC). OVL's main activities in this capacity take place in the Greater Nile Oil Project (GNOP), located in the Muglad Basin, in the disputed border region between South Sudan and Sudan, which contains oil blocks 1, 2 and 4 spread over 49,500 square kilometers.

ONGC also has a 24.125% participating interest (PI) in Block 5A, located in the Muglad basin in the center-north of South Sudan and operated by the White Nile Petroleum Operating Company (WNPOC), a consortium of Petronas (67.875% PI) and the Sudanese state-owned company Sudapet (8% PI). Within Block 5A, the TharJath, Mala and Mala's satellite fields had been put on production. As of March 2011, OVL had incurred a cumulative capital expenditure of approximately US $428 million in Block 5A.

=History= OVL entered Sudan in 2003 by gaining a 25% share in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), after Talisman decided to to sell its stake in the venture. In 2004, OVL gained a stake two more blocks: a 24% stake in Block 5A from the Austrian company OMV, and a 23.5% stake in Block 5B, both of which are operated by WNPOC.

In April 2009, OVL announced that it would sell its share in Block 5B after South Sudanese authorities allowed the Moldovian company Ascom Group to drill in the area, which OVL claimed contradicted an earlier resolution taken by the National Petroleum Council (NPC).

Indian news magazine Tehelka reported in June 2012 that OVL and China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) had shown interest in building an oil pipeline from South Sudan to Kenya’s East African coast. South Sudan's shut-down of oil production in January 2012 dealt a major blow to OVL's ambitions in the country, since over half its international oil production over the past decade came from South Sudan and Sudan.

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