UK-listed Imperial Energy said on Tuesday it has chosen ONGC Videsh Ltd over Chinese competitor Sinopec to discuss a possible sale to the Indian company and an announcement is likely shortly.
OVL, through its wholly owned subsidiary Jarpeno Ltd, has made a 12.50 pounds per share takeover offer, Imperial Energy said in an e-mailed statement.
"Imperial Energy confirms that is in the course of finalising the terms of a possible recommended pre-conditional cash offer with OVL of 1,250 pence per Imperial share," the company said.
OVL's offer values the company at 1.4 billion pounds.
"A further announcement is expected later," Imperial said. OVL, the overseas investment arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, had made a takeover offer last month and earlier this month China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec) made a counter offer.
Imperial, a relatively small British oil and gas company based in Leeds in UK, has oil producing blocks in Tomsk region of western Siberia in Russia and Kastanai in north-central Kazakhstan.
It produced about 10,000 barrels of oil per day in December 2007 and is targeting to raise this amount to 80,000 barrels per day (4 million tons a year) by year-end 2011.
Russian ministry of natural resources said Imperial's Russian Registered Reserves amount to about 450 million barrels of hydrocarbons. Independent assessment of the reserves by DeGolyer and McNaughton in December 2007 suggested in-place reserves of 920 million barrels of oil equivalent.