Russia has offered India a 1% stake, worth US$1 billion, in the country's state-controlled oil giant Rosneft, India's Financial Express newspaper reported, quoting sources.
India is considering asking a consortium led by ONGC Videsh Ltd, the investment arm for Oil and Natural Gas Corp's overseas oil assets, to pick up the stake, it said.
Rosneft, built from the ruins of bankrupt Russian energy empire Yukos, remains 80%-owned by the government even after an initial public offering in Moscow and London last year.
ONGC previously planned to invest US$3 billion for a 5-percent stake in Rosneft during the IPO. It eventually decided not to proceed with the plan.
Early this year, Rosneft and ONGC signed an agreement to jointly bid for exploration and refining projects in India, Russia and other countries.
The pair are already partners, with US energy giant ExxonMobil Corp, in Russia's Sakhalin-1 project, in which the Indian company holds a 20-percent stake in the project that yields 2.4 million tonnes of crude a year.
(AFX News, 08/05/2007)