‘Equity oil, rather than exploration, at core of overseas strategy now’

With crude oil prices near the lower range, state-run ONGC is looking at cost optimisation and profit maximisation. It is targeting 40 million tonne oil equivalent (mmtoe) of indigenous oil and gas output in the medium term, with production expected to start in a clutch of new fields.

- Arunima Bharadwaj

What are the company's plans regarding growth in its exploration & production of oil and gas?

After a slowdown during Covid, we have started refocusing on acreage acquisition as well as trying to increase exploratory drilling and data acquisition. Just last year, we acquired over 32,000 SKM new acreages, taking the total to around 180,000 SKM.

In terms of data acquisition, we are conducting non-seismic as well as seismic surveys. Coming offshore, we have both shallow water as well as deepwater and ultra-deepwater blocks coming up. In the last two years, we had several workshops, joint technical studies on potential exploration areas with firms such as Exxonmobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies, etc. Coming to the drilling aspect, we have 113 of our own rigs and last year we did over 100 wells in exploration. For this fiscal, we are targeting to reverse the production drop and achieve over 40 mmtoe of indigenous production and drilling around 550 wells.

How do you plan to reverse the output decline from mature fields?