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Over the years, production has steadily declined; but the firm is now stepping up exploration to find more reserves
ONGC said its crude oil production would rise 11% and natural gas output would jump 25% after newer discoveries in the western and eastern offshore start producing.
In an investor presentation post FY22 earnings, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) said crude oil production would rise from 19.545 million tonnes in the financial year ended March 31 to 19.88 million tonnes this year and 21.588 million tonnes in the next year.
The output would climb to 21.701 million tonnes in FY25.
Similarly, gas production would rise from 20.907 billion cubic meters in FY22 to 21.097 bcm in the current fiscal and 24.387 bcm in the next. In FY25, the output would reach 26.124 bcm.
The increase in output would be aided by projects to tap gas found on both the east and the west coast.
ONGC is betting on discoveries in KG-DWN-98/2 in the Bay of Bengal to do most of the heavy lifting, while the Cluster-8 marginal fields in the western offshore will supplement production.
ONGC said it was also implementing the fourth phase of the redevelopment of the Mumbai High oil and gas fields, which will increase the recovery factor from the five-decade-old mature fields.
India’s dependence on imports to meet its crude oil needs has, in recent years, risen to 85% as output from domestic fields continued to decline.
ONGC, the biggest crude oil and natural gas producer in the country, has, over the years, seen a steady decline in production from its mature and aging fields.
But the firm is now stepping up exploration to find more reserves.
ONGC said it would spend ₹31,000 crore from 2022 to 2025 on exploration campaigns throughout the country.
It aimed to “add around 1,00,000 sq. km. of new exploration area annually up to 2024-25,” the firm said, adding, “increase of acreage holding likely to further establish the resource potential of undiscovered plays and realisation of YTF (yet to find) reserves.”
This is a part of the company’s Vision 2040 that calls for raising capacities and production across its portfolio of oil and gas exploration and production, downstream oil refining and petrochemicals and new energy businesses.
The company started with an equity infusion of ₹343 crore by the government more than six decades ago.
The new Energy Strategy 2040 aimed to raise domestic production from 50 million tonnes of crude oil and oil equivalent gas to 70 MMtoe (Million Metric tonne of oil equivalent) by 2040, the firm said in the presentation.
Overseas output is seen rising from 15 MMtoe to 40 MMtoe.
With 35 million tonnes per annum of oil refining capacity vested in its two subsidiaries – HPCL and MRPL, ONGC is targeting an increase in this capacity to about 100 million tonnes by 2040. Also, expansion in petrochemicals would be prioritised, it said.
ONGC is also looking to scale up its renewable energy portfolio to 10 GW from less than 200 MW currently.
Also, the firm had set up a $1-billion venture fund corpus for the incubation of new technologies that would aid in raising the output and finding newer resources, it said in the presentation.
