ONGC able to arrest decline of oil production : CMD

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ONGC CMD Sudhir Vasudeva today said the company has been able to arrest the decline in its oil production, maintaining it at the level of 1 to 1.5 per cent, and asserted that it was for the government to decide on its proposed 5 per cent follow-on public offer.

Addressing newsmen here, Vasudeva said the world-over, the decline in oil companies' production is 4 per cent to 5 per cent, but ONGC has maintained the decline in oil production at the rate of 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent. "To maintain the oil production at the current level is itself a big challenge," he said. In this regard, he said 70 per cent of ONGC's oil production comes from 15 major fields out of the total 110 fields the company has, and on average, all of them are 30-35 years old. "So concerted efforts are being made to maintain the production as well as improve recovery from them," he said.

On 5 per cent disinvestment in ONGC, Vasudava said it was for the government to take a decision on the proposed issue. "It is still on the cards. Earlier market conditions were bad. But these conditions have started looking up," he said. During the previous fiscal, the company registered a record production of 62.05 million tonnes of oil and oil-equivalent gas from domestic and overseas assets.

ONGC accounts for 73 per cent of oil and 48 per cent of gas production in India. To a question, Vasudeva said hydrocarbon reserves are not going to run out in the next 40 years, but said ONGC is focused on tapping the potential of new sources of energy like coal bed methane, underground coal gasification and shale gas.

Regarding alternative sources of energy, he said ONGC is setting up another 102-MW wind farm in Rajasthan at an investment of Rs 800 crore after successful commissioning of a 50-MW wind farm in Gujarat. In this regard, he said wind energy has a potential of nearly 40,000 MW in the country.

To a question on the payment problem with Iran, the CMD said till date, the company has not faced any problem in getting oil supply from the Gulf country due to the issue of payment. He said the matter is being discussed at the government of India level and would be sorted out by them.