India, Aug. 17 -- State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has secured a licence from the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), allowing it to resume full operations in Venezuela after years of limited activity because of sanctions-related risks, a senior company official said.

The US approval removes a key hurdle for ONGC's Venezuelan investments and could pave the way for the State-run explorer to expand production, sign new agreements and take over operatorship of some projects from Venezuela's State oil company PDVSA, Anupam Agarwal, director-finance at ONGC, said at an investor call after the first-quarter earnings announcement.

"Now we have full freedom to work on the Venezuela project because earlier we were r...