Oil and gas explorer ONGC has achieved 100.3% of crude oil production target in April-June quarter. The state-owned company drilled 5.568 million tonne crude oil in the three months against a target of 5.552 million tonne. It had produced 5.504 million tonne crude oil in the first quarter of the last fiscal.
The quarterly targets for the company for every fiscal are set by the petroleum ministry through a memorandum of understanding.
“The higher production has been achieved because of incremental output trend from the offshore fields,” said a source. ONGC’s oilfields in the offshore areas achieved 101% of the target in the Q1FY16 by producing 4.13 million tonne compared with a target of 4.07 million tonne. Production from offshore fields was up 5.14% y-o-y.
The PSU is banking on better performance of its assets in the western offshore region. In FY15, crude production from western offshore fields, which contributes 70% to the explorer’s total domestic production, averaged at 3,27,500 bpd, which was the highest production rate from the western offshore since 2008. The trend, sources said, is likely to continue this fiscal.
ONGC’s natural gas production, however, was 98% of the target in the April-June quarter. It produced 5.486 billion cubic metres (bcm) natural gas against a target of 5.604 bcm. The gas production in the first quarter was less 3% y-o-y to 5.653 bcm in Q1FY15. The drop in natural gas production was due to less output from onshore gas fields. In addition, pipelines in Andhra Pradesh and western part of the country were not operating in full capacity, forcing ONGC to curb output, the source said.
Meanwhile, ONGC, which was drawing flak for not being able to implement projects on time, has completed seven such mega projects worth more than $1.5 billion till June 2015. At the same time, it targets to complete another eight to nine projects by December 2015. The PSU firm has undertaken nearly 27 projects, vital to ramp up output. The projects completed till June 2015 include cluster-7, D-193, PRP-3 and construction of immediate support vessel, among others. Implementation of these projects is closely monitored by petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who takes stock of ONGC performance every month.
In the first quarter of FY16, ONGC has kickstarted six new projects entailing an investment of Rs 25,000 crore. This include third phase redevelopment of Mumbai High North and South, additional development of Vasai East Field in Arabian Sea, Daman, C-26 and Bassein field.