Indian oil companies await $300 million dividend for business in Russia

NEW DELHI: An estimated $300 million dividend income belonging to Indian state-run oil companies is stuck in Russia as a result of Western banking curbs slapped after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The oil companies have invested nearly $5.5 billion in acquiring stakes in four different Russian fields: a 49.9% stake in the Vankorneft oil & gas field and 29.9% in the TAAS-Yuryakh Neftegazodobycha fields.

Oil India chairman Ranjit Rath, of Oil India, which has invested in Russian fields as part of consortiums, said, “We had been regularly getting our dividend income from the projects, and they are lying in bank accounts in Russia.”