ONGC adds 83 mn tonnes of oil and gas reserves in FY'10

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) today said it has added 83 million tonnes of oil and gas reserves in the 2009-10 fiscal, the highest in two decades, even as production was lower than the target.

"The ultimate reserve accretion of ONGC including its joint ventures (with firms like Cairn India) in domestic fields in 2009-10 has been 87.37 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent gas against the target of 76.28 million tonnes," ONGC said in a press statement here.

ONGC on a standalone basis added 82.98 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent gas reserves, "the highest ultimate reserve accretion in the last 20 years," it said.

The reserve had gone up due to Kasomarigaon discovery in Assam, South Mahadevpatnam and Pennugonda in KG onland, GK-28-1 in Kutch offshore and PER-1 in Mumbai offshore.

"Kasomarigaon and Pennugonda discoveries have already been put on production," it said.

ONGC said it had made three discoveries -- oil and gas in Karjan block in Gujarat, oil in Kutch offshore block and oil in an Ahmedabad block -- this month.

The company produced 24.858 million tonnes of crude oil in the 2009-10 fiscal, lower than the target of 25.764 million tonnes. Gas production at 23.1 billion cubic metres was higher than 22.24 bcm target.

ONGC had produced 25.366 million tonnes of oil and 22.486 bcm of gas in the 2008-09 fiscal.

Together with its share in fields operated by private firms like Cairn and production from its overseas assets, output dipped by 1.5 per cent to 33.06 million tonnes in FY'10 as against 33.576 million tonnes a year ago.

ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas investment arm of the state explorer, saw output fall by over a percent to 6.489 million tonnes.

"Oil production registered a decline mainly due to natural decline in some major producing fields of ONGC and OVL," it said.

ONGC chairman and managing director R S Sharma said, "Against the global average rate of declining production from mature fields, the performance of ONGC is very much satisfactory."

"I am delighted to mention that the Reserve Replacement Ratio of ONGC in its own domestic fields in this fiscal has been exceptionally impressive 1.73... The reserve accretion is the highest in the last two decades, which is a commendable performance in the context of waning reserve accretion trend across the globe," he added.