UNDER R.S.

THE Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), India's premier energy company, ranks first among the oil exploration and production (E&P) companies in Asia.

THE Oil and Natural Gas Corporation's Golden Jubilee Museum located in Dehra Dun is a big hit with schoolchildren and tourists.

It is high time Parliament took serious note of the sordid story of the unwarranted hike in the prices of petroleum products.

The time has come for the government to get off the oil industry's back

The runaway rise in international oil prices, which recently crossed $100 a barrel, has put Indian oil companies in a spot. Even as their costs rise, they are unable to raise prices to get the resources needed for acquiring oil assets or otherwise build the infrastructure needed for oil security.

SIVASAGAR

Oil and Natural Gas Corp will shut a key facility at its largest gas field off Mumbai, for a fortnight from March 1, to hook up new units, leading to fall in gas output by 38 per cent. ONGC, which had closed a production complex at the Bassein field in January, will shut the second complex BPA to enable additional gas wells in the South Bassein and Vasai East field to be hooked up to the production system. Company officials said the gas output during the shutdown would fall from 17.72 million standard cubic metres per day (mmscmd) from current 28.78 mmscmd. The shutdown of BPB process complex in January led to fall in gas production from 25.5 mmscmd to 15.5 mmscmd. Officials said the company has invested Rs 2,937 crore in additional development of the South Bassein field and another Rs 1,688 crore in the Vasai East field to avoid the expected decline in production this year onward. Under these two major development projects, two offshore platforms BCPA-2 and BCPB-2 are being installed near the existing process complexes of BPA and BPB at South Bassein field. With the implementation of this project, additional 20.53 billion cubic metre gas and 1.974 million tons additional condensate would accrue. Meanwhile, Essar Oil said thet it will raise $2 billion through issue of securities in domestic and international markets. The firm would issue equity shares, convertible debentures, american depository receipts (ADRs) and foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs), among others, it said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. The proposal was approved by the shareholders during their extra ordinary general meeting (EGM) held here.

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) announced discoveries of four sites of crude oil and natural gas in one month after its board meeting on Monday. It said it has notified the director-general of hydrocarbons about the discoveries. Three of the discoveries are onland and the fourth in offshore. The board also cleared three major investments for growth-oriented projects. The onland discoveries have been made in well Kosamba-41 and well Chaklasi-8, both in western onshore and in well Mekrang-7 in Assam. The offshore discovery has been made in well B-12-11 in PEL Block BOFF 1,2,3 on the Arabian Sea. The three projects are the revised configuration of Dahej Petrochemicals Project, the augmentation of the gas-processing capacity of its Hazira complex and the additional participation in the GulfA joint venture. ONGC will take up addi tional participating interest (PI) of 30 per cent in the development phase of Gulf-A in the joint venture block of CB-OS-1, at the northern-most end of the Gulf of Cambay. ONGC's share of 55.26 per cent of the capex would be $57.209 million. The other partners in this joint venture are Tata Petrodyne and HOEC.

State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) on Monday said it has reconfigured its proposed mega petrochemical plant at Dahej in Gujarat, bringing down the cost by Rs 1,100 crore to Rs 12,440 crore. The board of directors of ONGC, which met here on Monday, approved the revised configuration of Dahej Petrochemicals Project being implemented by the company's subsidiary ONGC Petro-additions Ltd (OPAL). The project was initially configured with a styrene butadiene rubber (SBR)

ONGC is collaborating with Norway's StatoilHydro on carbon management projects WHILE MOST OIL companies avoid speaking of climate change, India's ONGC has taken the issue head on. The oil and gas giant has signed an agreement with Norway's StatoilHydro to explore carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), clean development mechanism (CDM) and other carbon management projects. StatoilHydro, which runs one of the largest CCS projects in the world, will help ONGC's facilities suck C02 out of the atmosphere and pump it underground for storage. This reduces excessive levels of the gas in the atmosphere and lowers the risks of abrupt climate change. But for oil companies, there is an added benefit of pumping C02 underground, as it is also Recovery or EOR acts on the same principle, but uses C02 to extract hard-to-reach oil. By trapping C02 underground, ONGC will also earn revenues by selling carbon credits through the CDM. These credits can be sold to companies that have been unable to take their own C02 emissions below legally permissible limits.

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