NEW DELHI (Commodity Online): Public sector oil major, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation ltd (BOM:500312) has received the approval from the union government’s cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA) for a USD 2.2 billion investment in oil block in Venezuela.

Last month, ONGC had won a joint bid to develop the crude oil block in Venezuela's Orinoco Belt as part of a consortium with Spain's Repsol and Malaysia's Petronas, in which Indian Oil Corp and Oil India Ltd are other minor stakeholders in the block.

ONGC's foreign arm OVL will take an 11-per cent stake in the Venezuelan field, while IOC and OIL would each pick up a 3.5 per cent stake according to P Chidambaram. He was speaking to reporters after the CCEA meeting.

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The other members of the consortium, Repsol YPF and Petroleum National Bdh will take an 11-per cent stake each in the block. The remaining 60 per cent will be retained by Venezuela's state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

Venezuela currently has proven reserves of 142.3 billion barrels of oil and development of the Orinoco belt will allow it to increase that amount to 316 billion barrels.

The investment by the public sector explorer could potentially yield 5.5 million tonnes of year of crude at peak production level. Earlier ONGC's proposal for 40% stake acquisition in the Carabobo-1 block, through a consortium (including both Indian and overseas partners) had been cleared by a group of secretaries.

Production from the block is expected to start by 2013 and could reach a peak of 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day (20 million tonnes per annum) by 2016.

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