New Delhi: With the arrival of the tanker Viktor Titov at Mangalore port, domestic oil major Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has received the first shipment of Sakhalin-I crude oil from Russia which will be processed by its subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL). The tanker will offload 1 lakh tonnes of crude from the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk field at the port on Saturday.

ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas arm of ONGC, holds a 20 per cent stake in the Sakhalin-I project, operated by ExxonMobil. The US oil major holds 30 per cent of Sakhalin-I, with the remaining equity owned by Russia's Rosneft (20 per cent) and Japan's Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Co (30 per cent).

The Sakhalin project, which began operations in October 2005, is currently producing around 50,000 barrels per day. ONGC Videsh's entitlement from Sakhalin-I is three parcels of 7 lakh barrels each in October-December. OVL officials said that while the first cargo would be processed at MRPL, the other two would be sold to ExxonMobil.

OVL's 20 per cent stake in Sakhalin-I will yield 2.4 million tonnes of crude in 2007. The Sakhalin-I project is expected to reach its peak rate of 12 million tonnes per year once a new onshore crude processing unit is commissioned in December.