BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to reduce dependence on imports for meeting energy needs, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has beefed up efforts to raise the domestic output of natural gas production. The company’s natural gas production has hit an all-time high of about 70 million standard cubic metres per day, news agency PTI reported, citing sources.
In November last year, the state-run firm had produced about 64 million standard cubic metres per day (mmscmd) of gas, after accounting for internal consumption. In current market prices, the output can rise by 24-25 mmscmd in next 1-2 years, which will make about 35 billion cubic metres of recoverable reserves in discoveries in the shallow sea off Andhra Pradesh on the east and off Gujarat and Mumbai on the west coast blocks, economically viable.
ONGC has been constrained by the current $3.36 per million British thermal unit price of gas fixed by the government, which is a third of the rate at which India imports gas in its liquid form (LNG), said sources. This price is way below the cost of production for Block GK-28/42 in Gulf of Kutch, off the Gujarat coast, Mumbai offshore Block MB-OSN-2005/1 and Krishna Godavari basin Block KG-OSN-2005/1, which cumulatively can produce about 10 mmscmd.
A similar amount of gas can come from onland discoveries and another 5 mmscmd can be added if investment made in redevelopment projects of Mumbai High South, Neelam and B-127 cluster is made economical with the market price, the agency reported.
India now imports over 80 per cent of its oil needs. ONGC has stepped up efforts to bring newer fields into production after Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a stiff target of reducing oil import dependence by 10 per cent by 2022, sources said.
(With PTI inputs)