NEW DELHI, July 25: The public sector Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has embarked on a major financial and administrative restructuring programme to quicken the pace of decision making for maintaining its dominance in domestic crude production.

Confident of garnering 90 per cent share of the domestic crude oil production during the Ninth Plan period, ONGC chairman and managing director Bikash C Bora said: ``Besides 80 per cent of our own production, ten per cent share will come from various joint ventures with private sector''.

The corporation had engaged global financial consultants Mckenzie and Price Water House for giving packages on administrative and financial restructuring respectively, he said and added that the Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMC) was developing a package for integrated materials management programme.

With Mckenzie's interim report, pointing to compartmentalised working system in ONGC instead of use of collective knowledge, the corporation decided to launch three pilot projects next month as asset management centres with substantial empowerment for decision making, Bora said.

The corporation has a sizable plan outlay of Rs 24,500 crore for the next five years, of which nearly 30 per cent would be used for exploration of new fields to augment ONGC's oil production profile, Bora said. Expecting to maintain the profit levels of 1996-97 at Rs 2034 crore during the current financial year, Bora said the corporation's oil production would go up from 27.8 million tonnes now to 32 million tonnes in the terminal year of the Ninth Plan.

While the National crude production is expected to reach 40 million tonnes by 2002-03, the corporation would have an overall oil share of 36 million tonnes on account of its 40 per cent partnerships in the Rawa and Panna oil field joint ventures with private sector.

The chief executive (CEO) of the public sector oil giant, however, admitted that the corporation's performance was affected by the cost and time overruns in undertaking any operation, while emphasising that,``we are bringing lot of improvement in this sphere.'' He said that CMC package would enable the corporation to have online information on inventories for quick decision making apart from day-to-day monitoring of its projects.

Explaining the future strategy, Bora said with the restructuring and online information system, the budgeting pattern of the corporation for various projects would be changed, with a strict monitoring on expenditure.

Stating that price water house was engaged by the corporation middle of last year and that he expected a final report on financial restructuring by April 1998. The chief executive Bora said as such the corporation did not feel the need for enlarging its equity base.

``Our internal resources at the current level of administered oil prices will be to the tune of about Rs 20,000 crore as against the Ninth Plan outlay of Rs 24,500 crore and we will fill the gap through debt,'' he said. At the same time, t he chief executives officer expressed the confidence that ONGC might not have to even go for raising money through debt for the Ninth Plan activities as the administered prices for oil producers were scheduled for a revision in 1999.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.