ONGC shares plummet 4.5%, post earnings

Shares of state-owned oil explorer ONGC today fell 4.5 per cent after the company reported 19.5 per cent drop in net profit for the quarter ended March 2015.
The stock slumped 4.51 per cent to Rs 313.30 on BSE and was the top Sensex loser.
On NSE, the stock went down 4.48 per cent to Rs 313.20.
The net profit of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in January-March came in at Rs 3,935 crore, lower than Rs 4,889 crore in the same period previous fiscal, ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Dinesh K Sarraf said yesterday.
This is mainly due to higher operating cost and write-off on dry wells drilled.

The company wrote off Rs 291 crore of exploration expenses for drilling wells that did not result in any discovery.
For the full 2014-15, the company wrote off about Rs 10,000 crore, of which Rs 2,700 crore was on account of dry wells, Sarraf said.