ONGC Acquires UK's Imperial Energy for us$ 1.9bn

by Amitjha | December 31, 2008 at 03:59 am

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ONGC acquired imperial energy of UK.The crude price is touching new low every day and some of the oil companies are facing the hardship and finding it unable to cope with the pressure.But Indian bovernment owned ONGC is in acqiring spree world wide.The increasing demand for oil in Indian market is forcing the government to take necerrary step to ease the pressure.India imports 70% of oil demand and fluctuating oil price make it tough for government to mane the deficit.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has taken control of Imperial Energy Plc for 1.3 billion pound (USD 1.9 billion) after an overwhelming

96.8 per cent of London-listed firm's total shareholders accepted its takeover offer.

The deadline for the state-owned firm's 12.50 pounds per share offer closed yesterday and 99,241,110 or 96.8 per cent of the shares were tendered, ONGC Videsh Ltd informed the London Stock Exchange.

ONGC Chairman R S Sharma said the company owed the acquisition to government support, which has seen OVL in the past seven years increase its number of projects to 39 in 17 countries, from just a single project in Vietnam.

ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of the state explorer, needed 90 per cent shareholders to approve its deal, which will result in delisting of Imperial.

Imperial will be delisted from LSE after it "squeezes out" the remaining untendered shares by posting them cheques of the offer amount and telling the shareholders that these untendered shares were no longer valid.

Imperial, the Leeds-based firm that has oil producing blocks in Tomsk region of western Siberia in Russia and Kastanai in north-central Kazakhstan, would be the biggest overseas ever acquisition by OVL.

It had paid USD 1.7 billion to buy a 20 per cent stake in Exxon Mobil Corp's Sakhalin-I field in Russia and USD 785 million for a stake in the Greater Nile project in Sudan, both in 2003.