A consortium of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) has won an onshore oil block - Block 086 - in the highly prospective Sirte basin in Libya.

The two firms recently forged an alliance for venturing into oil and gas exploration and production in other countries.

As per license conditions, IOC-OIL will get 18.4 per cent share of any future production from the block, with the remaining 81.6 per cent going to Libya's national oil company. If oil is proven in the licence areas, Libya will fund half of the exploration and development costs.

Block-086 measures 7,087 sq km and the IOC-OIL consortium, which gave no signing bonus, had bid 18.4 per cent of production towards recovery of cost with the balance oil being committed to the Government of Libya.

OIL will be the operator of the block, which the IOC-OIL consortium won in the first ever offering of oil blocks by Libya after sanctions were lifted by the US. Libya is a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).