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ONGC has secured a licence from the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control allowing its overseas arm, ONGC Videsh Ltd, to resume full oil-field operations in Venezuela.
OVL holds a 40 per cent participating interest in the San Cristobal project and 11 per cent in the Carabobo project.
The company plans to lift output from 12,000-15,000 barrels per day to 30,000 barrels per day within a year and is in talks to take over operatorship from PDVSA.
The licence is expected to help recover frozen dividends estimated at 500 to 600 million dollars.
OFAC is the sanctions office of the US Treasury and administers American economic and trade restrictions. Where a jurisdiction is under sanctions, a specific OFAC licence permits named transactions that would otherwise be prohibited - investment, payments, and day-to-day operational activity. For a foreign company like ONGC Videsh, the licence matters because the global oil trade settles in dollars and runs through banks exposed to US law, so sanctions restrict even non-American firms in practice.
Simple Analogy: The sanction is a locked door on the whole building; a licence is a key cut for one specific room.
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Office of Foreign Assets Control, the sanctions administration office of the US Department of the Treasury.
The share of an oil project's costs and output that a partner company holds, distinct from equity in the operating company.
The right to run day-to-day field operations, which ONGC is seeking to take over from PDVSA.