India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has discovered a new pool of reserves in the D1 oilfield located off the west coast of the country.
The company expects that the new discovery will more than quadruple the output from the field to 60,000 barrels a day by March 2014.
The news has come as a relief to ONGC as it posted a three percent fall in crude-oil output for the quarter ending 30 June.
Sudhir Vasudeva, ONGC chairman, said in a news conference: "This discovery indeed has come up with a lot of promise signifying a substantial increase in the production for the company. Finally we have made it to a large discovery which was eluding us for long."
The company, however, also reported a 48% jump in its June quarter net profit, to Rs.60bn ($1.09bn) compared to Rs40.94bn ($738.6m) in the same period in 2011.
During the last five years the firm’s local production has been declining as the majority of its producing fields are ageing.
ONGC has set a target to increase its market capitalisation by four times, increase its revenue by three-fold and double its production rates by 2030, reports the Hindu.
