State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp on Thursday said its natural gas output will rise by over 58 per cent to 100 million cubic metres a day by 2015-16 after it puts its eastern offshore fields into production.
"Natural gas production will rise to 72 million standard cubic metres per day in 2012-13 (from 63 mmscmd in 2009-10) and to 100 mmscmd in 2015-16," ONGC Chairman and Managing Director R S Sharma told a news conference here.
ONGC will develop nearly one-and-a-half dozen gas discoveries in the Bay of Bengal in three phases and the first of the finds will go on production in the last quarter of 2012-13, he said, adding that by 2016, all the finds will be in production, with a combined output of 30 mmmscmd.
Similarly, discoveries in the western offshore will produce 10-15 mmscmd of gas by 2014, he said. ONGC, he said, will for the first time in recent years see a rise in crude oil production from 24.67 million tonnes in 2009-10 to about 28 million tonnes in 2012-13 as a result of bringing newer fields, particularly in the western offshore, into operation.
Sharma said his firm continues to be the nation's highest dividend-paying company, with ONGC shareholders meeting approving a dividend of Rs 33 per share (330 per cent) for 2009-10, with a total payout of Rs 7,058 crore (Rs 70.58 billion).
ONGC had posted its highest-ever net profit of Rs 16,768 crore (Rs 167.68 billion) in 2009-10, despite paying Rs 11,554 crore (Rs 115.54 billion) to subsidise petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene.
Sharma said ONGC has made 10 new discoveries during the current fiscal on top of the 21 finds it made in the previous financial year. The company is investing Rs 23,700 crore (Rs 237 billion) on improving production from six ageing oilfields, where a natural decline in output has set in.
ONGC Videsh Ltd, the firm's overseas investment arm, recorded its highest-ever production of 8.87 million tonnes of oil and oil-equivalent gas in 2009-10.
With nine out of 40 projects abroad in production, OVL had in the previous year reported production of 8.78 million tonnes of oil and oil- equivalent gas, he said.
Sharma said that of the Rs 75,984 crore (Rs 759.84 billion) planned capital expenditure by ONGC during the XIth Five-Year Plan (2007-12), the company had in the first three years of the plan period spent Rs 63,070 crore (Rs 630.7 billion).
