Agarwal has maintained that the current arrangement whereby ONGC bears the onus for all royalty payments, should stand as is.

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ONGC, which contributes just under two-thirds of local crude output, has set an ambitious target of doubling production and trebling revenue by 2030.

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However, ONGC eventually assented to the tie-up after this dispute was resolved, with the two sides agreeing that royalties would be recovered from the sale of crude oil.

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The ambitions of ONGC-Videsh in Kashagan may yet be blocked.

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ONGC, the primary upstream player in India, has had a stagnant output for years now due to maturing fields as well as lack of sufficient efforts in developing new fields.

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And a foray outside steel into the world of oil ended in frustration when Mittal Steel's joint bid with Indian oil company ONGC for PetroKazakhstan was topped by China National Petroleum Corp.

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This follows actions by Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth and other universities to sell a handful of stocks in the most unapologetic and egregious Sudan collaborators, like Indian national oil company ongc, which bought oil holdings in 2002.

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And a foray outside steel into the world of oil ended in frustration when Mittal Steel's joint bid with Indian oil company ONGC for PetroKazakhstan (nyse: PKZ - news - people ) was topped by China National Petroleum Corp.

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