ONGC asks govt to roll back sops to IOC, BP, HP

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has sought the government's permission to withdraw the discounts given to refineries like Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum.

"We have to buy crude at market prices for our own refinery "" Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd "" but give discounts to other refineries," Chairman Subir Raha said on the sidelines of a roadshow of the sixth National exploration Licensing Policy.

In the third quarter, ONGC extended a discount of Rs 8,550 crore during the first nine months of 2005-06.

Raha said ONGC planned an investment of over Rs 14,000 crore in domestic operations in the next fiscal year as against Rs 12,000 crore during the current year.

The public sector oil major will also start production from India's first deep-water gas field in April-May.

Initial production from G-1 and GS-15 fields in the Bay of Bengal will be about 1 million standard cubic metres per day and full production of 2 million standard cubic metres per day will be reached pre-monsoon in 2007.

He added that talks were on for acquiring oil properties abroad worth $15 billion, provided all the deals the company was engaged in materialised.

Raha said ONGC would set up a company for operating its Barmer Refinery in Rajasthan by the end of the month.

The refinery will have 49 per cent government stake, while the rst will be held by private parties that could be financial institutions. He said a detailed feasibility study for the refinery was being carried out.

Raha added that ONGC Videsh had tied up with with Russian oil company Itera for acquiring Oao Udmurtneft, a subsidiary of TNK-British Petroleum, which has licences to develop 26 fields in Russia.

The OVL-Itera consortium had been shortlisted with atleast four others after the initial round of bidding and the final price bids were to be submitted by April-end, sources said.

TNK-BP holds 96.9 per cent of Udmurtneft, which further has 19 subsidiaries, besides some independent companies. The current production from the oilfields owned by Udmurtneft is about 1.15 lakh barrels per day.