ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, has retained the services of Trafigura Ltd of London till March next year to trade 60,000 barrels per day of crude oil that it gets in lieu of its share in a Sudan oil field.

"OVL has extended by six months, the services of Trafigura for marketing Nile Blend crude oil that it gets in lieu of the 25 per cent share in Greater Nile Oil Project in Sudan," company sources said in New Delhi on Thursday.

Trafigura will market Nile Blend sweat crude oil for OVL till March 12 next year, by when ONGC hopes to put in place its own trading desk.

OVL, upon buying out Canadian Talisman Energy's 25 per cent stake in the 260,000 barrels per day Sudan oil field, had in March this year employed Trafigura for six months. Talisman was using Trafigura to sell its share of crude from GNOP.

Sources said Trafigura has been given an extension as the exploration and production firm did not have experience in crude oil trading.

While ONGC is shipping less than half of its 3.2 million tonne crude oil share in GNOP this year for processing at its subsidiary Mangalore Refineries and Petrochemicals Ltd, the remaining is being sold in the international markets.

Trafigura is charging ONGC 1.5 cents per barrel for sale on free-on-board basis and 2.5 cents per barrel for sale on CFR basis, they said.

Sources said if ONGC or OVL identifies the buyer, Trafigura charges 1.5 cents for sale on FoB as well as CFR basis.

OVL sells about 800,000 barrels per month of crude from the Sudan project in the international market.

Petronas of Malaysia has 30 per cent stake in the project while CNPC of China has 40 per cent interest. The remaining five per cent is with Sudan's Sudapest.