ONGC is spending 93% of its total capital expenditure of Rs 10,850 crore in the current fiscal on its core activities of exploration and production (E&P), according CMD Subir Raha.In a presentation to petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar last week, Raha sought to dispel the notion that ONGC was "diverting money from E&P to other businesses" like fuel retailing, LNG, petrochemicals and power generation.Raha stated that non-E&P activities got only Rs 1,466 crore, mostly for acquisition of MRPL, out of Rs 12,915 crore capex in 2002-04.In the current fiscal, only Rs 730 crore was being spent on activities to integrate its core E&P business with other segments of the hydrocarbon value chain.Next fiscal, ONGC has planned Rs 10,740 crore of capex out of which only Rs 170 crore would be for integration purpose, Raha said.Aiyar and petroleum secretary S C Tripathi have time and again criticised ONGC for pushing for downstream business as there was large profits in it, but Raha has refuted the allegation saying ONGC has undertaken the world's biggest seismic data acquisition campaign and the biggest deep water exploration campaign globally.He cited the example of oil majors ExxonMobil, BP, Total, Shell, ChevronTexaco, CNPC, Petronas, Reliance and Sinopec who had ventured into all activities of the hydrocarbon chain from E&P to refining, retailing and petrochemicals, and said: "We have no plan to diversify, except perhaps a subsidiary for self-insurance."
