Oil and natural gas output falls in April; find out the reasons

An ONGC oil platform

THE production of oil and natural gas in April recorded a year-on-year fall of 7.7 percent as both public and private sector explorers failed to meet targets. Official data released by ...
the petroleum ministry on May 23 showed.
The data, which appeared ahead of the announcement of new gas prices, showed that the actual production of 2.77 billion cubic metres of natural gas in April represents a target shortfall of 5.9 percent, as well as a drop of 7.7 percent from the production recorded in April 2013.
The natural gas production in April 2013 was over 3 billion cubic metres.
Most of the PSU oil companies failed to achieve their targeted production. Thus for ONGC, the planned target was 1844.231 TMT (thousand metric tonnes), but the actual production was 1782.683 TMT for the Maharatna PSU. ONGC achieved 96.7 percent of its target. In Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the oil major surpassed its target with over 100 percent production. In Assam, ONGC achieved 98 percent of its target.
The reasons for ONGC's shortfall have been cited as leakage in Mumbai Uran trunk line at Uran end affected production, closure of all the wells of VSEA field during leakage at Uran end, defy in commissioning of B-193 process platform affected production and less line condensate receipt from offshore.
In case of Gujarat, ageing of fields resulting in decline in reservoir pressure affected production, the statement said adding the closure of all wells due to leakage in dispatch line also contributed to the shortfall.
For OIL, in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, consequential effect due to bandh and blockades by various organisations led to a decline in production.
Leakage at Uran end resulting in less oil and associated gas production in Mumbai High is another reason for shortfall. The closure of free gas wells affected also production.
While state-run explorer Oil and natural Gas Corp (ONGC) fell short of its April production target by 6 percent, private producers and joint ventures, which together produced over 733 million cubic metres of gas, too missed their month's target by 7.2 percent.
The new gas price approved last year by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) headed by outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh almost doubles rates from the current $4.2 per million British thermal units. The Election Commission had on March 24 ordered the oil ministry to defer announcing the increase until the entire poll process ended.