State owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp on Tuesday said it may on September 27 decide on giving its consent to UK's Cairn Energy Plc selling majority stake in Cairn India to London listed Vedanta Resources.

ONGC, which holds stake in 8 out of the 10 oil and gas properties Cairn India has in the country, holds preemption or right of first refusal.

Mr AK Hazarika CMD of ONGC told reporters that "We have to do valuation of the properties if ONGC should buyout Cairn India or not. A lot of work is being done... we are in the process of doing due diligence. The final call will be taken by the company board which is slated to meet next on September 27.”

Cairn Energy has agreed to accept all government conditions, including sharing royalty and paying cess on the all important Rajasthan oil block. Since, Cairn India is opposed to the riders, it has demanded that company shareholders should vote on acceptance of them. Cairn Energy with 52.11% stake and Vedanta's 28.5% are all set to overrule Cairn India and accept the conditions.

He said that "They (Cairn Energy) have written to us, saying they are accepting the conditions and results of the shareholder vote will be announced by September 14. Thereafter, they will write to us for no objection certificate and we will take it to the next board meeting.”

Thus far, Cairn Energy had rejected existence of any pre emption rights of ONGC and its deal to sell 40% stake in Cairn India triggering them. But the government approval to the USD 9 billion deal made it conditional on Cairn getting a no objection certificate from ONGC.

Mr Hazarika further said that "NOC and right of first refusal are the same thing adding that the company board will have to decide if acquiring Cairn India at INR 355 per share the price Vedanta is paying Cairn Energy was economical to it.

(Sourced from ET)