India?s crude oil and natural gas production declined in July as oil companies struggled to ramp up output from ageing assets.
According to oil ministry data released on Friday, production of crude oil fell marginally in July by 0.6% to 3.26 million tonne compared to the target of 3.37 million tonne.
India imports around 85% of it?s crude requirements annually. To reduce dependency on imports, the country has been trying to augment domestic production but lack of technology and depleting energy assets have come in the way of meeting targets.
State-run explorer ONGC,which holds a portfolio of major producing field Mumbai High, witnessed a crude oil output decline of 6.06% to 1.91 million tonne. Recently, ONGC notified four discoveries in last one month in the region of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and sections of western offshore basin in Mumbai.
The company discovered a new pool of reserves in the D1 block and on completion of the field D1, production is expected to go up to 60,000 barrels of oil per day.
On the other hand, the country?s natural gas production has been witnessing a constant decline for the twentieth straight month by 13.6% to 3.58 billion cubic meters. The decline in output is led by Reliance?s most prolific KG D6 block which is currently producing about 29 million cubic meters a day (mmscmd) of gas against a target of 80 mmscmd.
