OREANDA-NEWS. December 7, 2011. ONGC CMD Mr. Sudhir Vasudeva flagged ONGC’s above-average score card in dealing with matured oil-fields producing for over 40 years.      

He was responding to queries from international oil fraternity on the challenges facing Indian upstream industry, during the Ministerial session of 20th World Petroleum Congress (WPC) at Doha on 5th December 2011.Pointing to the technological interventions adopted by the national oil company, the ONGC Chief said, “Over 70 per cent of India’s current domestic crude produce is from such brown-fields like the prolific Mumbai High”.

In contrast to global average Reserve-Replacement ratio of less than 1 from brown-fields, ONGC’s figure is over 1, which has been consistently maintained for the last five fiscals. ONGC CMD said that extensive doses of state-of-art technology infusions through IOR and EOR projects to arrest the natural declines from the depleting fields have helped ONGC maintain the production and secure incremental produce from the matured reservoirs, most of which were discovered in early seventies.

Talking of some structural challenges facing the Indian hydrocarbon industry, Mr.Vasudeva said that the Indian petroleum industry is geared up to capitalize on the emerging opportunities. Many measures are being taken for stepping up production, fast-track monetization and exploiting marginal fields which were not viable earlier. “ONGC is also actively pursuing renewable energy sources like Wind and Solar Power, and has set up a 51 MW Wind Power project in Gujarat and is in the process of setting up another one of 110 MW.

Talking of the ONGC’s established edge in global upstream industry, Mr. Vasudeva threw up the E&P balance sheet of ONGC Videsh Limited, which spoke for themselves. “From only one property in Vietnam till 2001, ONGC Videsh now has 33 E&P properties in 15 overseas countries; of these 9 are producing and 4 are discovered and under development”.

This interactive session followed the address of the Indian Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas Mr.Jaipal Reddy on “India – Growing Energy Market”. In his ministerial address in this 20th World Petroleum Congress at the Qatar capital, Mr. Reddy said that the growth momentum built in India over the last few years has helped India avoid the financial crisis faced by the rest of the developing world. “However, net oil importing countries like India have to face a bigger challenge in securing energy as oil price moves up”.

Making a strong case for India as an investment destination, the Petroleum Minister said that the investment policies have been significantly liberalized. “The investor-friendly policies of the Indian government have attracted significant investments in the petroleum sector. In addition to domestic efforts by upstream public enterprises, Indian companies like ONGC Videsh Limited (OCL) have taken up exploration acreages abroad.

The Minister pitched to augment investment by saying that Indian hydrocarbon sector offers immense opportunities for investments and reaping benefits. “The prospectivity of Indian sedimentary Basins, a large unexploited resource base, scope for infusion of technology across the hydrocarbon value chain, availability of skilled manpower and a well-established independent judiciary, are the key attractive features for investment in India”.