In a concerted effort to repatriate dividends from their investments in Russia's oil sector — a consortium of Indian oil companies, comprising Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Oil India Limited (OIL), and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) — is actively exploring multiple avenues to bring back an estimated $450 million (approximately Rs 4,980 crore at an exchange rate of 83 rupees to the dollar, or a rounded figure of Rs 5,000 crore) in dividend income.
Oil India's Chairman and Managing Director, Ranjit Rath, while speaking to CNBC-TV18, emphasised their determination to recover the substantial dividend income generated from their Russian assets. He said, "We are evaluating our options, we are looking at legal options, we are speaking to the banking channels, so a lot of efforts are underway."
The primary challenge facing the consortium is the complex process of repatriating funds from Russia. Nonetheless, Oil India's CMD expressed confidence in the situation, stating, "Otherwise, it is safely deposited in an SBI bank in Moscow. We are not concerned about repatriation; for us, it's a temporary phenomenon. Otherwise, it is yielding us dividends, which are 80 percent plus now, so we are okay with that."
"Our fund size is $1 billion on which 80 percent dividend we have already received," he said. To tackle the repatriation challenge, the companies are considering various legal options and have initiated discussions with law firms with a significant presence in Moscow, he informed.
Furthermore, given that their subsidiary managing Russian assets operates out of Singapore, they must also navigate the machanics of transferring funds from Moscow to Singapore and subsequently from Singapore to India.
"We have our subsidiary which is operating these Russian assets based out of Singapore, so we have to also look how Singapore bank would react to this and what are the possibilities of getting from Moscow to Singapore and from Singapore to India," he added.
This multi-faceted approach involves collaboration with Singaporean banks and exploring all possibilities for the safe and efficient return of their investments.
Oil India's CMD also highlighted that other Indian PSUs share similar interests and are actively pursuing strategies to retrieve their unrepatriated dividends from Russian investments.
"So a lot of traction is going on. We we are not the only ones, there are other PSUs involved in this," he said.
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