The country's crude oil production fell over 4 percent in the financial year 2018-19 after ageing fields of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) missed the target, official data showed Thursday.

India produced 34.2 million tonne of crude oil in the fiscal year ended March 31, down from 35.7 million tonne in the previous year, according to data released by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

ONGC output dropped to 21 million tonne from 22.25 million tonne in 2017-18, while OIL saw a 2.5 percent dip to 3.3 million tonne.

Fields in the private sector saw a production drop of nearly 2 percent to 9.8 million tonne mainly because of lower output at Cairn India's Rajasthan oilfields.

ONGC production was lower due to technical issues at its Mumbai and Neelam Heera fields in the Arabian Sea and less than the production at Santhal and Balol fields in Gujarat.

During March, the country's total crude oil production fell to 2.85 million tonne from 3.04 million tonne in the corresponding month of the previous fiscal year.

Natural gas production, however, edged up to 32.9 billion cubic metre (BCM) in 2018-19, from 32.6 BCM in the previous year as ONGC produced 5.3 percent more gas at 24.67 BCM.

Higher production by ONGC made up for a nearly 14 percent drop in output from private sector fields at 5.47 BCM.

This was a result of shutting down of two more wells at Reliance Industries' eastern offshore D1-D3 gas fields in the flagging KG-D6 block, the ministry statement said.

Indian refineries produced 2 percent higher fuel and other petroleum products at 257.2 million tonne in 2018-19 on a better showing by state-owned firms.

State-owned refiners such as Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) produced nearly 3 percent more fuel at 151 million tonnes in 2018-19, while private sector refinery throughput was nearly 3.5 percent lower at 88 million tonne after both Reliance Industries' Jamnagar refineries and Nayara Energy's Vadinar units in Gujarat produced less.

Twin refineries at Jamnagar produced 69.1 million tonne, down from 70.4 million tonne. Vadinar refinery throughput was nearly 9 percent lower at 19 million tonne.

First Published:Apr 25, 2019 8:06 PM IST