NEW DELHI: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) on Wednesday said it will invest over Rs 13,000 crore for exploration work across Assam in the next five years.
The company said it has signed an agreement with the Assam government in this regard.
“ONGC has signed an MoU with the Government of Assam for investing more than Rs 13,000 during next five years in Assam for enhancing its exploration and production (E&P) activities,” ONGC said in a release.
This investment is being made for drilling more than 220 oil and gas wells — a mix of development and exploration ones — across the state, it said.
“ONGC is giving impetus to its activities in alignment with the Prime Minister’s call for reducing import by 10 per cent by 2022, and the North East Hydrocarbon Vision 2030,” the release said.
The company recently received green nod to drill six development wells in five mining lease blocks in Jorhat and Golaghat districts of Assam at an estimated cost of Rs 240 crore, it said. ONGC had sought permission to drill 12 such wells.
The state-owned firm has discovered fuel in Babejia well under the Assam Shelf Basin during 2018-19.
ONGC had produced 0.797 million metric tonnes of oil and 407.40 million metric standard cubic meters of gas from its operations in the state during the 2018-19 fiscal, the release said.
It is currently executing 27 projects across the country at an investment of over Rs 86,000 crore. These include 18 development and nine infrastructure projects.
ONGC has already pumped in about Rs 1,50,000 crore during the last five years in exploration and production, while 10 projects worth Rs 13,000 crore were completed in 2018-19, the release said.
In this period, it completed six pipeline projects in Assam at an investment of Rs 152.32 crore.
The company owns 20 per cent equity capital in Indradhanush Gas Grid Ltd (IGGL), a joint venture company of ONGC, IOCL, GAIL, OIL and NRL.
IGGL will lay 1,656 km of gas pipelines covering all the north-eastern states with a capex of Rs 9,265 crore, it said.
ONGC posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 7,043 crore in the April-June quarter as against Rs 9,318 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.
The consolidated gross revenue in the first quarter also declined marginally to Rs 1,09,515 crore from Rs 1,10,367 crore in the year-ago period.
The company produced 24.23 million tonnes of crude oil and 25.81 billion cubic metres of natural gas from its domestic fields in 2018-19.
Another 10.1 million tonnes of oil and 4.736 billion cubic metres of gas was produced from its overseas assets, the release added.
Source: Press Trust of India
