New Delhi, Aug 03: ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), today said that it is likely to begin drilling for oil in the war-ravaged iraq in the next two months. "We hope to begin drilling in the western dessert block 8 in Iraq in next two months," OVL MD Atul Chandra said in a news conference.
OVL held negotiations with US-led coalition provisional authority in Iraq and had been given to understand that the contract for the block 8 will be honoured. This contract was signed with the Saddam Hussein regime in November 2000.

In the first phase, OVL will invest 15 million dollars in reprocessing and interpretation of existing 2-D seismic data, new 2-D seismic survey and in drilling two wells.
The block, that lies on the border with Kuwait, has a reserve expectation of about 645 million barrels, of which 54 million barrels were recoverable.
ONGC Chairman and MD Subir Raha said that the company will construct an oxygen plant for Iraqi hospitals and supply $100,000 worth of medicines.
Besides exploration, India is also keen on importing at least three million tonnes of Iraqi Basrah light crude oil.
OVL was also in toe for the Tuba oil field in Iraq which can produce up to 200,000 barrel per day of crude. The firm was working on Iraq`s Tuba oil field before evacuating during the 1990-91 gulf war, company officials said.
Bureau Report