ONGC raises stake in Petrobras field Oil and Natural Gas Corp will invest $500m to acquire an additional 12 per cent stake in a Brazilian oilfield from state-backed operator Petrobras, blocking a previous bid from China's Sinochem. The move by India's largest oil and gas explorer by revenues is likely to be seen as a sign of increased rivalry between state-backed Indian and Chinese groups for overseas energy assets as they compete for resources to fuel their rapid development. In August Petrobras, Brazil's national oil company, said it would sell its 35 per cent stake in the offshore Parque das Conchas field to Sinochem, a state-backed chemicals maker, for $1.5bn. The move prompted Royal Dutch Shell and ONGC, which already own 50 per cent and 15 per cent of the field respectively, to exercise their contractual right to pre-empt the Chinese offer. In a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Indian group said its overseas arm, ONGC Videsh, had in September issued a "pre-emption notice" along with Shell, allowing the two groups to buy the remainder of the asset. The move is the latest in a series of oil deals by foreign energy groups in Brazil, whose shores offer plentiful deepwater energy resources. Sudhir Vasudeva, ONGC's chairman, said: "The acquisitions of producing and exploratory assets reflect the success of the strategy adopted by the company to quickly add reserves [and] production through a balanced portfolio approach." The deal follows a string of recent foreign investments from ONGC as it seeks to meet a government mandate to increase substantially India's overseas energy supplies, including the $2.6bn purchase of a stake in a gasfield off the coast of Mozambique in August. The strategy is part of a broader ONGC push to increase overseas assets over the next two decades as part of its "Perspective Plan 2030," involving a reported investment plan in the region of Rs11tn ($180bn), analysts said. "This is part of their attempt to source the majority of their crude from overseas over that time," says Dayanand Mittal, an oil and gas expert at brokerage Ambit Capital. Rather than acquiring a new asset, which they don't know much about, they are investing more in one they already know well, which makes sense. The deal follows the decision of a number of Asian oil companies to register last month for an auction to develop Brazil's extensive Libra deepwater field, including ONGC and China National Petroleum Corp, another state-backed producer. ONGC's shares rose slightly on news of the Brazilian deal, closing 0.6 per cent higher in Mumbai.