The share of India’s state companies in oil and gas production from overseas fields increased to 19.9 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent (MMTOE) in 2023-24 from 19.5 MMTOE in the previous year.
Production at Russia’s Skahalin-1 project normalised during the financial year, after being badly affected in 2022 following the launch of the Russia-Ukraine war. ONGC Videsh, India’s largest investor in overseas oil and gas fields, has a stake in Sakhalin-1, where production had nearly halted for some time following the exit of its operator Exxon, industry executives said.
Similarly, production at ONGC Videsh’s two projects in South Sudan, which were shut by unprecedented floods previously, resumed in 2023-24, the executives said.
Voluntary production cuts by OPEC+ countries, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, also affect Indian firms’ overseas output. Russia, UAE, Azerbaijan and South Sudan are members of OPEC+, a grouping of about two dozen oil-producing countries that jointly coordinate oil production and have been producing less than their capacity. Some of Indian firms’ key producing assets are located in these four countries, with Russia accounting for the largest share of production for these firms.
Big investments in Russian fields in 2015-16 helped boost Indian firms’ overseas output in the past decade. India’s overseas output surged two and a half times to 24.7 MMTOE in 2018-19 from 9.9 MMTOE in 2014-15. The output started declining in 2019-20, falling every year until 2022-23, as fields matured. Indian firms also slowed down on acquiring assets after the purchases in Russia and the UAE seven-eight years ago. Some of the exploration and discovered assets they had acquired previously haven’t started production. The giant gas field in Mozambique, where ONGC, BPCL and Oil India have invested, is stuck due to the poor law and order situation.