Minister asks ONGC to step up crude output in Assam

UNION petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan has asked state-owned  Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) to ramp up crude output from its fields in Assam to help reduce India's import dependence.
Pradhan, on a four-day visit to the North-East, visited ONGC's Assam asset to take stock of the production performance.
The minister visited "the Geleky Drill site EV 2000 5 and interacted with all the employees", the PSU said in a statement.
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ONGC chairman Dinesh K Sarraf, he also visited the Geleky GGS-I (Group Gathering Station-I) where oil is collected from all the wells in the surrounding areas. The Geleky GGS-I was constructed in 1968 and is currently producing over 1,000 tonnes of crude per day. "The minister also reviewed the overall performance of the ONGC Assam Asset to ascertain what should be done in order to increase the production of one of the oldest assets of ONGC," the statement read. Pradhan exhorted ONGC "to think differently so that the decline in production is arrested and oil comes up from newer areas". India imports 77 percent of its oil requirements and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tasked the oil ministry to cut the import reliance by 10 percent by 2022. "Team ONGC assured the minister that no stone would be left unturned to achieve higher production from this asset," it added.   ONGC stock price On April 17, 2015, at 10:50 hrs Oil and Natural Gas Corporation was quoting at Rs 329.50, up Rs 2.00, or 0.61 percent. The 52-week high of the share was Rs 472.00 and the 52-week low was Rs 301.00. The company's trailing 12-month (TTM) EPS was at Rs 21.84 per share as per the quarter ended December 2014. The stock's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was 15.09. The latest book value of the company is Rs 159.81 per share. At current value, the price-to-book value of the company is 2.06.
The country's flagship energy major is engaged in exploration and production of oil and gas in India and abroad.
A global player in energy, it contributes about 69 percent of India’s domestic oil and gas production. Currently, ONGC through its subsidiary ONGC Videsh Ltd., is India’s largest transnational corporate with overseas investment of over $10 billion in 16 countries.
The state-owned PSU recently reversed a seven-year decline in its crude oil production, showing a marginal increase in output in 2014-15. ONGC produced 22.263 million tons (MT) of crude oil during April 2014 to March 31, 2015, up from 22.247 MT in the previous fiscal.