Govt says ONGC incurred unfruitful expenditure

New Delhi, Mar 18 (UNI) The government today informed the Rajya Sabha that ''unfruitful'' expenditure has been incurred by the country's oil exploring firm Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

The office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) recently forwarded their observations on an audit titled 'Deep Water Exploration' relating to ONGC.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dinsha Patel said during the period from March 2003 to January 2008, no new oil fields have been given to ONGC for production.

However, 39 exploration blocks have been awarded to ONGC (with operatorship) in various rounds of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) during this period, Mr Patel said.

In addition, ONGC has participating interest in eight other blocks, awarded during this period where other consortium partners are operators, the Minister added.

ONGC also acquired a block (KG-DWN-98/2) with 90 per cent participating interest and operatorship from Cairn Energy India Pty Ltd (CEIL) in 2005.

UNI RT SBA RK1645