Natural gas production falls 9% in July

Domestic natural gas production fell 9 per cent, primarily due to lower production from offshore fields as production from onshore fields remained flat. In July, natural gas production was 2.739 billion cubic meters against 3.008 billion cubic meters in the same month last year.

GAIL pipeline blast

ONGC’s natural gas production fell nearly 9 per cent. The company said its production from Andhra Pradesh fell because of the GAIL pipeline blast, while the production from Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu was lower due to lower offtake from consumers.

For the shortfall from offshore fields, ONGC clarified: “High tidal waves leading to exposure of pipeline at landfall point (Hazira), resulted in gas supply being stopped from 11th July 2014 and restored on 18th July 2014. Nil offtake by GAIL since 5th July 2014 onwards due to pipeline health check-up jobs affected production in eastern offshore.”

Crude oil

Crude oil production also fell in July by one per cent. ONGC’s production was almost flat but the fall in crude oil production from the offshore fields of private sector companies led to an overall fall in output. During the month, crude oil production was 3.147 million tonnes against 3.179 mt in the same month last year.

Crude throughput

Falling domestic production also had an impact on refinery crude throughput which fell 5.5 per cent in July to 18.093 mt from 19.141 mt in the same month last year. This, in turn, affected the total production of petroleum products from refineries which fell 4 per cent to 17.615 mt from 18.358 mt in the same month last year.

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