India's oil, gas production rise in April

Friday, 21 May 2004, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: India's crude oil and natural gas production during April showed encouraging increase, official data for the month showed Thursday. As against the target of 2.727 million metric tonnes (MMT) for the month, India recorded 4.4 percent rise in production to 2.848 MMT, the petroleum ministry stated. State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), which accounts for over 80 percent of India's total crude oil production of around 34 MMT, achieved 2.244 MMT, a 4.5 percent rise over the target of 2.148 MMT. The highest rise in production was from private and joint venture companies with 6.5 percent increase over the target, the ministry said, while not identifying the areas or production companies. Corresponding to the higher production, India's refineries too registered higher output of 5.5 percent to reach 10.417 MMT as against a target of 9.878 MMT due to higher capacity utilisation of 100.6 percent. India depends on imports for 70 percent of its oil needs and has, since early this year, started getting liquefied natural gas from Qatar to bridge the growing gap between demand and supply. During April, the natural gas production in the country rose from 2,645 million cubic metres (MCM) in April last year to 2,679 MCM in the corresponding month this year, an increase of 1.3 percent.
Source: IANS
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