ONGC makes new discoveries

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) today said it has made two oil and gas discoveries in Gujarat.

ONGC struck oil and gas in a well drilled  block CB-ONN-2004/2 in Gujarat, the company said in a statement here.

The state-owned firm has 50% interest in the block that it had won along with Gujarat State Petroleum Corp (40%) and Sunterra (10%) in the seventh round of bidding under New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP).

Exploratory well Vadtal-3 produced oil at a rate of 22.5 cubic meter per day and gas at a rate of 3758 cubic meter per day on testing, it said. "The oil produced is of very good quality with a gravity of 41.10 API."

This is the second discovery in block CB-ONN-2001/1.

ONGC said it made an oil discovery in a nomination block Linch Extn-1 in the western offshore.

"Development well North Kadi-461 in Linch Extn-I PML, Western Onshore Basin, was drilled to a depth of 1600 meters," it said adding oil flowed at a rate of 17 cubic meters per day during testing.

The oil is heavy oil with 25.390 API gravity.

ONGC said it produced 27.272 million tonnes of crude oil in 2010-11 fiscal, marginally higher than the target of 27 million tonnes. Gas production at 25.322 billion cubic meters was also higher than 25 bcm target.

It sold 20.297 bcm of gas and produced 3.2 million tonnes of value added products in the fiscal.

The firm's overseas arm, ONGC Videsh Ltd produced 9.433 million tonnes of oil and oil equivalent gas, surpassing the earlier peak production of 8.87 million tons of oil and oil equivalent gas in 2009-10.

Commending the performance, ONGC Chairman and Managing Director A K Hazarika said: "Considering the global average rate of production decline from matured oil fields, this performance of ONGC is commendable."

"Our performance in reserve accretion is once again laudable. However, without drawing any complacence, we are focusing on bringing all new discoveries to production at the earliest possible opportunities," he said.

ONGC said it made a total of 24 discoveries during 2010-11 financial year.

During 2010-11, ONGC said it added 236.92 million tonne oil and oil equivalent (Mtoe) gas in-place reserves. Of this "83.56 million tonnes of oil equivalent as the Ultimate Reserve surpassed the record breaking performance of previous fiscal (82.98 Mtoe) and resulting a RRR (Reserve Replacement Ratio) of 1.76".