A consortium led by Indian group ONGC has bid for a stake in Novatek's liquefied natural gas project in the Russian Arctic, a Novatek spokesman told Reuters on Monday.
"We received a bid from a consortium of ONGC, Petronet and GAIL for a stake in Yamal LNG," he said. Indian newspaper The Hindustan Times reported the consortium was willing to commit as much as $3.4 billion for a 15 percent stake.
Analysts said participation of Indian companies in the project was a positive development for Novatek, Russia's second-largest natural gas producer and which could get access to the LNG market in India through a deal.
A fifth of the project has already been assigned to French company Total. "(India) could see LNG demand rise to 50 million tonnes by 2020 (Wood Mackenzie estimates), while direct access to the market could allow for the employment of swap schemes with the traditional suppliers of LNG to Asia," Alfa Bank said in a note.
Yamal LNG was slated to start production of up to 16 million tonnes of frozen gas a year in 2015-17.
