ONGC to speed up exploration projects.

After drawing flak from various quarters for its slow pace of work, state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has decided to delegate decision-making powers to its officials in order to speed up its various exploration and production projects. Over the past decade, ONGC has seen oil and gas output from its field decline steadily.

During FY14, the company’s domestic oil and gas production was 45.03 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe), the lowest in a decade. In 2005, production was 47.15 mtoe. ONGC's scrip was up 2.78 per cent at Rs 454.80 on the BSE on the back of drop in crude oil prices and upgrade by Bank of America Merrill Lynch on a possible reworking in subsidy-sharing formula.

The company's biggest project currently is Krishna Godavari-DWN-98/2, or KG D5, located in the Bay of Bengal. The project has been delayed by four years. It was to begin production this year, but it has now been pushed to 2018. 'Our officials went to Kakinada to review the project and came up with a timeline of 2021 for production. This was not acceptable to us. We wanted to put it on production much sooner. It will be a challenge, but we said we want this to be produced by 2018,'said D K Sarraf, chairman and managing director, ONGC.


BS