Debt-laden Videocon Industries has put its oil blocks in Brazil for sale, a top company executive said in an interview.
The proceeds from the sale will be used to reduce debt and repayment of loans to banks, Venugopal Dhoot, chairman and managing director, Videocon said in a phone interview.
Videocon Hydrocarbon Holdings Ltd (Videocon), the Cayman Islands firm that owns the stakes, has received interests from some interested parties, Dhoot said, without naming the companies.
Videocon owns stakes in four major blocks in Brazil through an equal joint venture, IBV Brasil Ltd, with Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd.
“We will repay to banks in the next 2-3 months,” Dhoot said.Total reserves in the fields that we have discovered in Indonesia and Brazil, have around 4 billion barrels of oil and oil equivalent. We are working towards getting those fields in production.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd (ONGC) and Vedanta Resources Plc’s Cairn India Ltd as other partners in the block.
In a bid to pare its debt, Videocon in 2013 had sold its 10% stake in the Mozambique gas field to ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas upstream arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd and Oil India Ltd for close to $2.47 billion.
Oil and gas business has been a tremendous success for us. We are the largest and most successful Indian private sector explorer in the world today. Total reserves in the fields that we have discovered in Indonesia and Brazil have around 4 billion barrels of oil and oil equivalent. We are working towards getting those fields in production