ONGC invests Rs 24,890 cr to develop marginal oil, gas field

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) today said it was investing Rs 24,890 crore in developing marginal oil and gas fields to make up for fall in production at old and ageing properties.

"We have taken up 10 major projects for development and one project for additional development of D-1 field with estimated investment of Rs 24,890 crore," ONGC Chairman and Managing Director AK Hazarika told company shareholders here.

The fields under development are: C-Series, B-22 cluster, B-193 cluster, B-46 cluster, North Tapti gas field, Cluster-7, BHE & BH-35, WO-16 cluster, G-1 & GS-15 and SB-14. "These fields are expected to be on stream by 2013-14."

ONGC output has dipped to about 24 million tonne and the marginal fields will help it reach past glory of 28 million tonne.

He said production from Krishna Godavari basin GS-15 field would commence by mid-September.

ONGC will commission two large petrochemicals projects in next two years. The petrochem project at Dahej in Gujarat, being developed by ONGC Petro-additions (OPAL), will be commissioned in 2012 and another by ONGC Mangalore Petrochemicals in 2013, Hazarika said.

Hazarika said during the year the company achieved the highest ever production of 62.05 million tonnes of oil and oil-equivalent gas from domestic and overseas assets.

Also, production from overseas assets at 9.45 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent gas was also highest ever.

Reserve accretion at 83.56 million tonne was the highest in last two decades from domestic acreages.

ONGC, he said, had shelled out a record Rs 24,892 crore in fuel subsidy in 2010-11. "The upstream companies had to share subsidy burden by 38.8%, instead of past practices of 33.3%. Out of that ONGC had to share 82%."

Upstream firms like ONGC are asked to foot at least one-third of the revenues that fuel retailers lose on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene below cost.

"Our outgo of Rs 24,892 crore on account of the subsidy sharing, resulted in the net crude oil price realisation of $53.77 per barrel in 2010-11 as against $55.94 a barrel during the previous fiscal," he said.

Also, the first unit of 363.3x2 MW gas-based power plant at Palatana, Tripura by ONGC Tripura Power Co (OTPC) would be commissioned in February, 2012 and the second unit in August, 2012.