ONGC plans ₹1 lakh crore green push, targets net-zero by 2038

State run-Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) plans to invest ₹1 trillion by 2030 to scale up its renewable energy capacity to 1 gigawatts (GW) from 189 megawatts as the company targets net zero carbon emissions by 2038, Chairman Arun Kumar Singh said on Monday.

The chairman of India's top oil and gas producer said the company has done its internal workings and is now confident that it can achieve net-zero for Scope-1 and Scope-2 emissions by 2038, news agency PTI reported.

"We have done our internal workings and are now confident that we can achieve net-zero for Scope-1 and Scope-2 emissions by 2038," the ONGC chairman said.

The ONGC chief said, “The country’s energy demand will keep going up. It's not that fossil fuel demand in India will go down; for others, it may go down by 2030 but India will still see growing fossil fuel demand till 2040.”

“But we have to step up our effort for green energy so that at least 2070 we are net zero,” he added.

Singh said ONGC is planning to scale up electricity generation from renewable sources from 189 MW to 1 GW by 2030. It already has 5 GW of project planned in Rajasthan and is scouting for a similar capacity. The company would also look at offshore wind farms, he added.

The New Delhi based company is also looking at setting up a 1 million tonne per annum green ammonia plant at Mangalore.

"Overall, the investments will be of the order of ₹1 lakh crore," Singh said.

ONGC produced 19.584 million tonne (MT) of oil in 2022-23, up from 19.545 MT of previous year. The output is likely to rise to 21.263 MT in the current fiscal (April 2023 to March 2024), to 21.525 MT in 2024-25 and 22.389 MT in the following fiscal.

Natural gas output is slated to rise from 20.636 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2022-23 to 23.621 bcm in 2023-24, 26.08 bcm in the following year and 27.16 bcm in 2025-26.

ONGC chairman said the company has planned a capital expenditure of ₹30,125 crore in 2023-24, almost same as ₹30,208 crore spent in the previous fiscal year.