Friday, 12 Sep, 2025
By: Yash Gupte
The trend in fall of crude oil production in India has been continuing over the past months. According to the Ministry of Petroleum and natural gas, Crude oil production during July 2022 was 2453.19 Thousand Metric Tonnes (TMT), which was 5.57% lower than target for the month and 3.76% lower than the production of July 2021.
The trend in fall of crude oil production in India has been continuing over the past months. According to the Ministry of Petroleum and natural gas, Crude oil production during July 2022 was 2453.19 Thousand Metric Tonnes (TMT), which was 5.57% lower than target for the month and 3.76% lower than the production of July 2021. The Indian Oil giants Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Limited (OIL) failed to achieve their targets of crude oil production.
ONGC produced 1636.56 TMT of crude oil in July 2022, 3.36% less than the monthly target and 1.70% less than output in July 2021. ONGC's cumulative crude oil output from April to July 2022 was 6606.19 TMT, which is 1.12% lower than the target for the period but 1.99% higher than the target for the period and production during the same period previous year. Crude oil production by OIL was 263.70 TMT in July 2022, which is 8.11% lower than the monthly target but 4.12% higher than production in July 2021. OIL's cumulative crude oil output from April to July 2022 was 1037.55 TMT, which is 4.94% below than the target for the period but 4.21% higher than production during the same period previous year.
Crude oil production by private companies also reported a decline in their production. Crude oil production by private companies during July 2022 was 552.92 TMT, which is 10.45% lower than the target of the reporting month and 12.34% lower than the month production of July 2021. The reasons for declining crude oil production were attributed to miscreant activities in Main Producing Areas (MPA), less than planned contribution from work over wells, restriction on drilling activities due to socio-political issues in Cauvery and others.
Source: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas
Apart from crude oil, there was also a decline in the Natural gas production in India. Natural gas output in July 2022 was 2882.54 Million Metric Standard Cubic Meters (MMSCM), 3.33% less than the monthly target and 0.40% less than in July 2021. Cumulative natural gas output from April to July 2022 was 11436.19 MMSCM, which is 2.80% lower than the target for the time but 3.38% higher than production from the same period last year.
Not just July, domestic oil production in the country has been declining over the past few months. As the chart shows, the domestic crude oil production has been consistently declining in India.In the fiscal year 2021, India produced approximately 30.5 million metric tonnes (MMT) of crude oil. India's crude production declined to 28.4 MMT in FY22. A few days back, India Tracker did a story which revealed that country’s domestic oil production has hit a 28-year-low.
Source: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas
Although India is planning to reduce its oil imports, the road ahead is not free of hurdles. Some measures like ethanol blending can minimize the heavy dependence on production and import of crude oil and petroleum. Along with it, New Delhi is focusing on electric vehicles as a formidable alternative to fossil fuel run vehicles.
A dearth of fresh oil discoveries in India, along with a long lead time to begin production from discovered wells, has resulted in a gradual reduction in crude oil production, increasing India's reliance on imports. According to experts, the output of these old wells is declining faster than new wells can be drilled.
