India Records Lowest Crude Oil Production in Nine Years

OILMONSTER.COM- India produced 31,349 Thousand Tonne (TMT) of crude oil in the first eleven months (April-February) of the current financial year (2018-2019), the lowest output recorded in the past nine years during the same period, according to fresh data sourced from the oil ministry.

The declining trend in the country’s domestic crude oil production is coming at a time when the country’s oil import bill has already ballooned 29 per cent to $102.9 billion during the April-February period of the current fiscal. 

Also, the decline in domestic crude oil production has pushed India’s oil import dependence to 83.8 per cent, the highest recorded in the April-February period in the last five years for which data is publicly available.

The government had earlier said it is working towards a plan to reduce the country’s crude oil import dependence by 10 per cent by 2022.

India’s crude oil production in February 2019 declined 6.4 per cent to 2,564 TMT, as compared to 2,731 TMT produced in the corresponding month a year ago, primarily due to fall in production from fields operated by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), private players and fields operated under a Joint Venture, data showed.

Cumulatively India’s crude oil production in April-February period declined 4 per cent to 31,349 TMT, as compared to 32,643 TMT recorded in the corresponding period a year ago. 

India’s oil production has declined over the past nine years mainly due to ageing fields leading to fall in output from nearly all the offshore and onshore blocks, data shows.

Courtesy: www.economictimes.com