Oil output to go up after 10 years of flat growth: ONGC

ONGC's oil output is expected to go up significantly in the current fiscal on the back of higher reserves accretion after witnessing flat production growth over the past decade, chairman and managing director R S Sharma said, "Our oil production, after a ten-year flat growth, is projected to increase by about three million tonnes (annually) in the next two-three years and gas production from 62 million cubic metres per day is expected to cross 100 million cubic metres per day in the next five-six years."

He added that ONGC's production has been flat at approximately 25 million tonnes of oil per annum in the last ten years, while gas production amounted to 62 million standard cubic metres of gas per day on average, based on the discoveries made by the oil and gas explorer.

However, last year, reserve accretion was the highest in the last 20 years. He noted that in the industry that ONGC operates, it takes five-seven years for discoveries to translate into oil and gas production.

Sharma said ONGC's follow-on public offer is slated for the January-March quarter, when a 5 per cent stake would be divested. When ten per cent was divested under the oil and gas exploration, company's initial public offer in 2004, the government was able to raise Rs 10,500 crore (Rs 105 billion).

The five per cent divestment in early 2011 would fetch "much more than the ten per cent collection in 2004", Sharma said. On reports that ONGC is mulling a stock split, he said the company is waiting for the green signal from the government.

"Once we hear (from the government), we will deliver," he said on the sidelines of a three-day national quality summit organised by the CII.