Ecuador's Hydrocarbons Minister, Carlos Perez, stated in early-mid April 2018, on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum, that the international arm ONGC Videsh of Indian oil-company ONGC is looking at purchasing a stake in oil fields in Ecuador and may participate in the upcoming Ronda Intracampos tender. He said, "We will be signing a confidentiality agreement with them in the following weeks and we will provide them with information in new blocks." ONGC is apparently looking for fields with a minimum 25,000 bo/d. ONGC Videsh Managing Director, Narendra K Verma stated, "We had a good meeting with Ecuador and we will explore the possibility of expanding our footprints in Ecuador. We are already present in Colombia." ONGC Videsh signed a strategic partnership agreement to form a joint Business Development Group with Chilean company GeoPark for activities in Latin America. ONGC may also invest in existing field joint ventures.Ecuador was originally planning to launch its Ronda Intracampos licensing round in March 2018, for eight blocks in the north east of the country in the Oriente-Maranon Basin, under a new contract model to attract investment in the country. This bid round is thought to be imminent. The blocks on offer will be carved out of state-owned Petroamazonas acreage and have thirteen undeveloped fields between them. The government has estimated around US$ 1.25 billion in investments are required for all of the blocks. On 13 March 2018, state-run Petroamazonas, with the support of the national government, hosted a presentation to launch the 'Ronda Oil & Gas 2018' auction for five fields under the new specific services contract model. These are unlikely to be of interest to ONGC as four of these are relatively small onshore oil fields with a low production rate and one is an offshore gas field.
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