Panel set up to look at selling 149 fields of ONGC, OIL to firms

The government has constituted a six-member committee to look at selling as many as 149 small and marginal oil and gas fields of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) to private and foreign companies to boost domestic output, sources said.

The panel is headed by NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar and includes Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha, Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, Oil Secretary M M Kutty, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant and ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Shashi Shanker. Sources said the committee is a follow up of the October 12 meeting called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review domestic production profile of oil and gas and the roadmap for cutting import dependence by 10 per cent by 2022.

At the meeting, the Oil Ministry made a presentation showing that 149 smaller fields of ONGC, OIL and other explorers accounted for just 5 per cent of the domestic crude oil production.

It was suggested at the meeting that these smaller fields could be given out to private and foreign firms and ONGC could concentrate on the big ones, where it could rope in technology partners through production enhancement contracts or technical arrangements.

Sources said the ministry was of the view that ONGC should concentrate on the large fields as they contribute to 95 per cent of its production and leave out the rest for private firms.