Shares in the Russia-focused Imperial Energy have soared as it looks like shareholders have backed a £1.3bn bid from India’s ONGC.

The shares jumped 16.5% or 170p to £12.00, just 50p adrift of the price that ONGC has offered.

Shareholders had until 1pm today to vote on the offer, which had received backing from both the Indian government and Russian regulators.

There were fears that if less than 90% of them backed the deal, ONGC might back out and come back with a lower offer than they made in August, when the oil price was about three times what it is today.

There has been no official statement yet, but it is widely assumed that the requisite number of shareholders have given their support, following a last-ditch charm offensive from bankers at Merrill Lynch and RBS.

Imperial has reserves of about 3.4m barrels of oil equivalent, and the takeover would increase ONGC’s reserves by around 20%. Most of the company’s operations are in Siberia and in former Soviet states.

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