‘ONGC should shift its orientation from processes to outcomes’

State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation needs to change its orientation from processes to outcomes, and have new key performance indicators for better efficiency, petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Saturday.

These indicators need to focus on three important goals -- undiscovered acreage into discovery fields; discovered fields into production assets; and production assets into maximum production assets, the minister said while rededicating ONGC’S drilling rig Sagar Samrat as a mobile offshore production unit.

Located 145 km west of Mumbai, the Japan-built Sagar Samrat drilled ONGC’S first offshore well in 1974 at Bombay High.

“ONGC possesses a large sedimentary basin acreage, which will go up even further in the coming days,” the minister said. ONGC’S teams engaged in different processes of the three phases must reorient themselves for accelerated achievements of these targets, he added. Efforts must be made to make ONGC “agile, expedient and efficient”, Puri said, asking the firm to make investments in R&D and exploration activities.

“Government of India intends to increase India’s exploration acreage to 0.5 million sq km by 2025 and 1 million sq km by 2030,” he said. The government has been successful in reducing the no-go area by 99%, making available an additional 1 million sq km of India’s exclusive economic zone for exploration. No-go areas are locations where exploration activities are prohibited due to strategic reasons.

“Several MNCS like Chevron, Exxonmobil and Total Energies are showing keen interest to invest in the Indian E&P (exploration and production) segment, and some are already in talks with ONGC for firming up mutually beneficial partnerships,” he said.

“India’s energy demand is expected to grow at about 3% per annum by 2040, compared to the global rate of 1%. Further, 25% of the global energy growth between 2020 and 2040 is going to come from India due to our fast-growing economy and demographic dividend,” he said. However, India imports 85% of its petroleum requirements and spent approximately $120 billion in 2021-22 to import of oil products, he added.

India’s Amrit Kaal cannot be realised without achieving energy independence by 2047, he said. Amrit Kaal is the name the government has given to the 25 years in the run-up to 2047, the centenary of India’s Independence.