ONGC is lending surplus cash to oil marketing companies

Oil and Natural gas Corporation, (ONGC), India's biggest oil and gas exploration and production company, is doing more than looking for gas. It's looking for a home to park its money and is turning into a moneylender of sorts to other state led firms.
ONGC's third quarter earnings were impacted due to reasons. One is the write-off because of the dry wells and second is zero interest rates for loans given to its overseas arm ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL).

So after learning the hard way, ONGC is now lending its surplus cash to oil marketing companies like HPCL, BPCL, Indian Oil and its own subsidiary MRPL.
D.K. Sarraf, director of finance at ONGC said that that MRPL has been granted loan of Rs 5,000 crore and OMCs Rs 3,000 crore and the interest rate is more than 6 % or so that they are getting from the FDs.

So, what happens to the overseas arm OVL's fund requirement?
Well, the pressure on ONGC is now much lesser from OVL side, but it will still lend the helping hand to OVL whenever required. But the real beneficiaries are the oil marketing companies, who need the cash with ONGC, charging lesser interest rate compared to the other lenders, it's the best option. For ONGC, it is getting better interest rate as compared to its fixed deposits.