Crude oil production goes down, Govt

New Delhi, July 20 (UNI) Crude oil production in the country in June 2006 went down 0.7 per cent with state owned oil exploration majors ONGC and OIL registering lower outputs, government figures said today.

Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) had a shortfall of 1.3 per cent with the actual production being 2.160 million metric tonnes against a planned target of 2.189 mmt for the cumulative period April-June 2006.

The government attributed this to environmental reasons, back pressure problem at N2 generation plant and delay in commissioning of the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) of the ONGC.

The overall crude production during April-June 2006 has been 2.825 mmt against a planned 2.845 mmt. In April-June it had gone down .04 per cent and during the same period last year it had gone up by .02 per cent.

Also, the OIL refinery in Assam has been repeatedly disrupted by locals at Barekuri, Khagorijan, Baghjan, Chauba area and a series of bomb blasts by suspected terrorists on June 9, June 19 and June 11 in upper Assam.

In terms of crude, the refinery production was however up by 2.3 per cent increasing to 11.750 mmt higher than the target of 11.491 mmt. But it was less than production in April-June when the percentage increase was 4.1 per cent and a high of 11.8 per cent in the same period last year.

However the refinery capacity utilisation in June 2006 went up 103 per cent higher than the last year's 96.4 per cent in the same period.

The natural gas production went up at 4.7 per cent at 2684 million cubic meters against the planned target of 2564 mcm, official figures said.

ONGC's production of gas was up by 6 per cent and that of OIL by 0.5 per cent.

UNI/RT CS RS1632