Domestic crude oil production falls for second month in a row
Domestic crude oil production fell for the second consecutive month in July, dropping 0.39 per cent year-on-year to 3.134 million tonne. During the month, natural gas production continued its declining trend falling 4.38 per cent to 2.620 billion cubic metres.
While the Government has been pushing oil and gas companies to raise hydrocarbon production and lower the country’s dependence on imports, the results are not yet showing. In three out of the four months of the 2015-16 fiscal for which the data is out, there has been a decline in both crude oil and natural gas production.
After a brief spike from ONGC’s offshore fields towards in the fourth quarter of 2014-15, production growth from these fields have again slowed down. ONGC’s offshore production growth in crude oil was 2.36 per cent in July. This, coupled with a 7.86 per cent drop in production of crude oil from its onshore fields, meant that overall the company’s crude oil production had fallen 0.44 per cent in the month to 1.880 million tonne.
At the company’s first quarter results last week, ONGC’s Chairman and Managing Director DK Sarraf said the company is working to arrest the decline in production and expects ‘good news’ by the end of the current fiscal.
The other public sector oil and gas exploration company Oil India also had a 6.72 per cent drop in crude oil production during the month at 0.275 million tonne.
While the public sector companies suffered a fall, production from joint venture and private sector fields increased marginally by 1.64 per cent to 0.978 million tonne. However, Cairn India’s Rajasthan fields remained a concern with a fall in production of 2.57 per cent.
In natural gas, apart from ONGC’s onshore fields and the onshore fields of the joint venture and private sector fields, there was a production drop across the board. The onshore fields contribute less than 20 per cent to the country’s production and during the month it was at 0.516 billion cubic metres.
Meanwhile, domestic refiners processed 2.9 per cent more crude oil during the month at 18.668 million tonnes.
