ONGC’s crude oil output increases in FY16

The Dollar Business Bureau

The Govt’s ONGC crude oil production has risen for the second consecutive year in 2015-16 though its natural gas production is yet to pick up. The state run refinery produced 22.37MT of crude oil in FY ended March 31, 2016. This is more than 22.26MT produced in the previous fiscal.

ONGC struck oil in 2014-15 through the small and marginal fields in the western offshore, after seven long years of declining trend. April 2014 to March 31, 2015, saw an output of 22.263MT of crude oil production which was an increase from 22.247MT from the previous fiscal.

Remarking on the natural decline that has set in most of the older fields, a company official remarked,  “our major fields are three to four decade old where natural decline has set it. So the challenge before us is to arrest this by investing in enhanced and increased oil recovery schemes and bring newer deposits into production.” The country relied on ONGC for most of its oil needs, but that has come down to 60% on its total dependency.

The production of oil peaked in 2006-07 when ONGC produced 26.05MT of crude oil that decreased to 25.94MT in 2007-08. From then on the dip continued in all the following years from 25.37MT in 2008-09 to 22.25MT in 2013-14. Though its 2015-16 production seems fairly better at 22.37MT, it meets only 60.5% of the country’s need of 36.95MT production. The marginal increase can be attributed to the continuous monthly monitoring by the Oil Ministry on its production. And the increase in output can be attributed to the 1MT of additional production from various other offshore fields.

However there has been no change in its natural gas production which continues to fall to 21.17 BCM (billion cubic meters) from 22.02 BCM in the earlier fiscal. This is a marked decline from its 23.55BCM in 2012-13 when the output peaked and could go no further. The current output of 21.17 BCM meets only 65.6% of the country’s needs of 32.25 BCM. However officials are positive that there could be an increase in the production from this fiscal as the Govt. has taken up the development of eastern and western offshore gas fields on a war footing.