Oil and Natural Gas Corporation has recently added 83 million tonnes of oil and equivalent gas reserves in the 2009-10 fiscal—the highest ultimate reserve accretion in the last 20 years. Such firsts in the market can only be introduced by a company if it has a strong Research and Development wing. The fact that ONGC has left no stones unturned to give concrete basis to its R&D wing was once again testified as it bagged the SCOPE Meritorious Award 2008-09 to its R&D wing for outstanding Technology Development and Innovation.


Research and development expeditions by ONGC:

ONGC has discovered many priced reserves in the recent past. These include the Kasomarigaon discovery in Assam, South Mahadevpatnam and Pennugonda in KG onland.

GK-28-1 in Kutch offshore and PER-1 in Mumbai offshore out of which Kasomarigaon and Pennugonda discoveries have already been put on production by ONGC. ONGC has opened its fiscal 2010-11 with three major discoveries—oil and gas in the Karjan block in Gujarat, oil in the Kutch offshore block and oil in an Ahmedabad block.

It has become increasingly important for oil companies to become technology intensive especially at a juncture when we are witnessing falling oil production and rising internal developments. To build this gap ONGC has nine dedicated institutes to undertake basis and applied R&D in the key areas of activity like

• Hydrocarbon exploration
• Seismic data processing
• Drilling
• Reservoir management production technology,
• Ocean engineering,
• Safety
• Environment protection

The company savours its research and technology partnership with institutes like CSIR labs and IITs to explore the latest alternative technology to overcome the ever increasing demanding developments in unconventional areas.

The second strategic pursuit of the company has been 'improving the recovery factor'. It has systematically been implementing the Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) and Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) schemes in 15 major fields since 2001. These schemes have helped in improving recovery factor in these fields from 28% in 2000-01 to 33% in 2008-09. During this period the company invested over Rs. 14,000 crore in fourteen IOR/EOR schemes, which have already been completed. Seven schemes are under implementation with an envisaged investment of over Rs. 16,000 crore.

Its expenditure in the XIth plan was estimated as Rs. 833.76 crore. The expenditure during the first two years was Rs 392.17 crore. The actual expenditure is expected to cross approximately Rs 1,000 crore.

ONGC has been ranked as Number One E&P Company in the world and 25th among leading global energy majors as per Platts Top 250 Global Energy company rankings 2008 (October 2008).

Other Lead Story

• Oil and Natural Gas Corporation - Better the R&D, brighter the future
• Punjab National Bank - Corporate governance best practices
• Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) - Test of character
• Sail Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) - Corporate social responsibility
• National Backward Classes Financial and Development Corporation - Adding more value to Section 25 PSEs
• Gujarat State Fertilisers & Chemicals Ltd - Go Green!!
• National Thermal Power Corporation - A potential global giant PSU