ONGC was flush with gains on Friday after the company reported major oil and gas discoveries at Vasai, Mumbai and Laipling-gaon, Assam.

The scrip of the strategic state-run oil and gas explorer advanced 2.26% to Rs 368.40 by 9:58 IST. By then, it recorded volumes of 3,230 shares on BSE . The scrip has been on a rising trajectory over the past two sessions, climbing 3.65% from Rs 355.40 on 2 April 2003.

On Thursday, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation announced the discovery of substantial oil reserves west of the Vasai gas field, off the Bombay coast. The Vasai West find is estimated to contain 240 million barrels of in-place oil plus oil-equivalent gas.

The company also reported another find at Laipling-gaon in the northeastern state of Assam. Even by preliminary estimates, 100 million barrels of in-place oil plus oil-equivalent of gas are believed to be held in the Laipling-gaon discovery.

With this, ONGC has made six recent new discoveries - Vasai West (oil and gas) on the western offshore, GS-49 (gas) and GS-KW (oil and gas) on the Krishna Godavari offshore, Chinnewala Tibba (gas) in Rajasthan, Laipling-gaon (oil and gas) and Banamali (oil) both in Assam. At Chinnewala Tibba, testing has indicated the presence of sweet gas with more than 7,000 Kcal/m calorific value, against the usual range of 1,250 to 3,100 Kcal/m in other gas finds in Rajasthan.

ONGC's crude production in 2002-03 crossed the 26-million-tonne mark, an increase of 1.3 million tonnes over the production in 2001-02. The increase came mainly from ONGC's prime asset, the Mumbai High field, following re-development projects launched in 2001.

In 2001-02, ONGC achieved its highest-ever production and sales of natural gas, 24.3 billion cubic metres and 19.5 billion cubic metres, respectively. Production of 3.8 million tonnes of value-added products - petrochemical feedstock, LPG, naphtha and natural gas liquids, kerosene - also reached all-time high levels.

The financial performance of ONGC has also been impressive of late. For the third quarter ended 31 December 2002, ONGC recorded an 84% rise in net profit to Rs 2,593.47 crore (Rs 25.93 billion) on a 35% increase in net sales to Rs 7,604.99 crore (Rs 76.04 billion).

As on 31 December 2002, the Centre held 96.13% stake in ONGC, while the public and institutions