New Delhi, Jan. 12: ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, is close to picking up to 40 per cent stake in Kazakhstan’s Satpayev oil field in the Caspian Sea, a petroleum ministry official said today.

“We hope to get a 30-40 per cent stake in the block. Petroleum secretary R.S. Pandey and OVL officials have gone to Kazakhstan to finalise the deal,” the official said on the sidelines of the Petrotech conference. The official said an agreement on the stake sale was expected to be signed during the visit of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev to India.

OVL, which has paid $2.1 billion for taking over Imperial Energy, would also invest another $600 million over the next two to three years to develop the company’s assets in Russia, a company official said.