ONGC to spend Rs 26k cr on capex in next fiscal

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) will spend Rs 26,000 crore on capital expenditure in the next financial year, its Chairman and Managing Director R S Sharma said today.

The company's capital expenditure in this financial year is Rs 24,000 crore, he added.

Most of the budget will be spent on exploration and modernisation plans, Sharma told reporters on the sidelines of Eighth Biennial International Conference & Exposition on Petroleum Geophysics.

He said modernisation works at Mumbai are underway.

Replying to a query on the upcoming Union budget proposals on oil and gas exploration activities, he said the cost of exploration has been going high and no major investments are coming up.

There is a need to incentivise exploration activity as budgets on exploration is going up, Sharma said.

Earlier Sharma had said ONGC is set to invest Rs 25,000 crore in the Krishna-Godavari basin in the next five years. Gas production from GS-1 and GS-15 deep water fields will start from next year.

The Andhra Pradesh government has 10 per cent share in these two blocks. Gas production from another two blocks will begin from 2012, Sharma said.