Establishing closer energy ties between India and Russia will be high on the agenda when Petroleum Minister Murli Deora meets Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Deora is expected to arrive in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss closer energy cooperation with the Russian Prime Minister and other officials to set the agenda of next month's bilateral summit during President Dmitry Medvedev's New Delhi visit.

Ahead of his visit, Russian Natural Resources Ministry has cleared the acquisition of London-listed Imperial Energy by ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) as its Western Siberian assets were evaluated as 'non-strategic'.

Imperial deal worth $2.59 would be the biggest overseas acquisition of OVL.

Bilateral cooperation in nuclear and conventional energy with India will have a priority place in Russia's strategy of foreign economic ties till 2020, Kremlin sources said.

According to its secret foreign economic doctrine adopted in October by the Putin cabinet, Russian natural gas giant 'Gazprom' is to speed up the exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons in the Bay of Bengal jointly with GAIL in the offshore bloc acquired under NEP.

India, which picked a 20 percent share in the Sakhalin-1 production sharing project operated by ExxonMobil in 2003 for $1.7, is looking for more investment opportunities in Sakhalin-3 and other projects in Russia.

Although, during Putin's Presidentship Russia has discontinued the allocation of PSA blocks but the oil industry officials say that Indian oil and gas majors have entered into cooperation agreements with state-owned Gazprom and Rosneft.

"Indian energy companies could be invited to join some projects in Russia, including the production of LNG for exports to the Asian markets," the sources said.