ONGC to fulfil investment commitment for Nigeria oil blocks

New Delhi: Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has said it, along with billionaire partner Lakshmi Mittal, will fulfil the $6 billion infrastructure investment commitment made to Nigeria for winning lucrative oil blocks.

ONGC Mittal Energy (OMEL), the joint venture of ONGC Videsh and steel czar-owned Mittal Investment Sarl, however, set no timeline for investing in building a 1.80 lakh-barrel-a-day refinery, a 2,000 MW power plant, and a railway line connecting e astern and western Nigeria.

“OMEL had made certain commitments (in 2005 to get oil blocks) and surely, we will be meeting those commitments,'' ONGC Chairman and Managing Director R S Sharma told reporters.

Nigeria had accused the joint venture of not investing even a single penny and had begun a probe on the allocation of oil blocks to it. “There were no timelines set (for making the investments) and I don't think we had faltered on the timelines,'' Sharma said.