ONGC plans Rs 4,000cr refinery in Rajasthan

ONGC is planning to set up a Rs 4,000 crore refinery in Barmer in Rajasthan - the site of recent oil discoveries by UK-based Cairn Energy.

"We are talking with Cairn Energy to jointly set up the refinery," ONGC CMD Subir Raha said today.

The refinery is planned to have an initial capacity of 5 million tonne per annum, and would process the heavy crude oil find of Cairn Energy in block RJ-ON-90/1 in Rajasthan.

Raha said the equity holding pattern for the refinery project was being discussed with Cairn.

Cairn Energy has so far discovered 1,084.1 million barrel (or 156.2 million tonne) of in-place reserves of which 286.45 million barrel (or 41.87 million tonne) are recoverable. The present discoveries would produce up to three million tonne per annum, but the output would rise with new finds being made.

ONGC holds 30% interest in Cairn's two oil fields in the block.

Raha said ONGC was also examining the possibility of raising the capacity of MRPL to 30 million tonne.

"MRPL is running at 12 million tonne currently, and its capacity will be raised to 15 million tonne by 2007 through debottlenecking. We are studying the prospect to double the capacity to 30 million tonne," he said.

... Starts retailing under brand name OVaL

Mangalore: ONGC, which opened its first petrol station here on March 19, is entering auto fuel retailing under the brand name OVaL (ONGC Values).

The company is planning to set up 1,600 retail outlets for selling petrol and diesel by 2007.

"We are concentrating more on attaining volumes rather than outlets. We hope to achieve sale of 15,000 kilolitre of diesel and 2,000 kilolitre of petrol per month by the end of 2005-06," ONGC CMD Subir Raha said.

ONGC has started a price war by offering attractive discounts. Petrol at the Oval outlet is priced Re 1 per litre lower than the prevailing price of existing retailers, and diesel is being sold at a discount of 50 paise per litre.

Raha said ONGC is also offering a loyalty programme where a customer will get instant cash discount on purchase of pre-declared quantities.