While most corporates are currently bearing the brunt of the recent financial turmoil in the global oil markets, a few including the likes of domestic oil and gas producer ONGC and power producer NTPC Ltd still maintain they have not been hit by the crisis.

ONGC chairman and managing director RS Sharma said on Friday that his company has enough financial resources to fund another two to three Imperial Energy sized acquisitions. ONGC is sitting with a cash balance of Rs 25,000 crore and is ready for the $2.59 billion acquisition of UK-listed firm Imperial Energy, which has significant presence in Russia?s oil and gas sector.

?We have not slowed down on our overseas acquisitions plan and in fact we see it is as a suitable time to up the ante,? he said. Global financial crisis will not impact the company?s investment plans, he added. ONGC, he said, has adequate liquidity.

On his part, Sharma also said the company has cash surplus of Rs 17,000 crore. ?We have sound financial management practices in place and we are not really worried,? he told FE.

ONGC cash balance of

Rs 25,000 crore is sufficient to fund acquisitions five times the size of Imperial. Besides, ONGC also has equity holdings worth Rs 6,100 crore (as on September 15) in the two state-owned rich oil and gas firms?Indian Oil Corporation and GAIL (India) Limted. ONGC has 8.83 % stake in IOC and 4.83 % in GAIL.

?We have sufficient options to fund the Imperial acquisition. Funds are not a constraint for ONGC or its subsidiary OVL. If needed, we can always unlock our holdings in IOC and GAIL and the funds locked in government bonds. However, Imperial acquisition will not need all this,? Sharma said.

ONGC hopes to get an approval from Kremlin to go ahead with the purchase of Imperial for $2.59 billion. If Kremlin approves the deal, Imperial would be the biggest overseas acquisition for OVL, which paid $1.7 billion to buy a stake in Exxon Mobil Corp?s Sakhalin-I field in Russia and $785 million for a stake in the Greater Nile project in Sudan, both in 2003.

Imperial Energy will give OVL, which already has a 20 % stake in Sakhalin-1 project in Far East Russia, access to Siberia, an area believed to hold huge hydrocarbon deposits.

The OVL-Imperial deal is contingent upon Kremlin?s approval as Imperial has assets in Tomsk region of the western Siberia.

A committee headed by the Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin, which screens foreign investments in strategic sectors, is to decide on OVL?s acquisition of Imperial. Petroleum minister Murli Deora had last spoken to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev who had promised to support the deal.

?We have received verbal assurance that the Russian government has no objection to our deal but we are still waiting for a written communication,? an OVL director said. ?We expect to hear something from them next week,? he indicated.

The board of Imperial had last month recommended OVL?s 1,250 pence a share bid but it has to win approval of Russian authorities to materialise.

The Kremlin may want the Indian firm to sell part of the Imperial stake to a Russian state oil group such as Rosneft, which OVL said it is open to.