ONGC makes 10 oil, gas finds in 2005-06

New Delhi: State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) on Tuesday reported making 10 new oil and gas discoveries during the 2005-06 fiscal.

Five discoveries were in deep-sea - all in Krishna Godavari basin (finds D-1, A-1, U-1, W-1 and E-1 in Block KG-DWN-98/2), a company release issued after its Annual General Meeting (AGM) said.

Three finds were in shallow offshore (RV-1 in Mumbai offshore, B-9-1 in Saurashtra offshore and GS-15 in Krishna Godavari offshore), it said adding two discoveries were made in onland blocks - Turputallu-I in KG basin and Mekeypore-3 in Assam Shelf.

Addressing a post-AGM press conference, ONGC Chairman and Managing Director R S Sharma said the company's main focus was oil and gas exploration. "99.75 per cent of capital expenditure (Capex) goes towards E&P."

ONGC was actively involved in Increased Oil Recovery (IOR) and Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) projects in 15 of its major fields to augment recovery from the matured fields. Eight IOR/EOR projects worth Rs 1,703 crore have been completed while 10 projects worth Rs 12,138 crore were under implementation.

But for the IOR/EOR projects, production from the 15 matured fields would have declined to 12 million tonnes. Currently they are producing 22.65 million tonnes, he said.

ONGC will invest Rs 13,555.28 crore on oil and gas exploration and production in 2006-07. It plans to produce 27.35 million tonens of crude oil in 2006-07 as against 24.404 million tonnes the previous year, he said. Sharma said ONGC was investing Rs 31,813 crore in bringing to production new discoveries.

The company was investing Rs 12,700 crore in bringing marginal and small fields to production, Rs 1,263 crore on G-1 and GS-15 fields, Rs 5,500 crore on East Coast Hub Development, Rs 507 crore on D-1 field development, Rs 1,688 crore on Vasai (East) Development, Rs 2,937 crore on development of Bassein field and Rs 911 crore on additional development of A-1 field in Mumbai High.

Besides, ONGC was also investing Rs 2,570 crore on renewing ageing Assam oilfields and another Rs 3,492 crore on other revamping projects, he said.