By IANS
New Delhi : Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) may split its stock and even consider a bonus issue to help a larger section of investors to buy its shares, company chairman R.S. Sharma said here Wednesday.
“We will consider a bonus issue and also a share split at an appropriate time,” Sharma told reporters here after a meeting with shareholders, who approved the highest-ever dividend of 310 percent for fiscal 2006-07.
“We understand that smaller investors are unable to buy shares at the current price,” the chairman said, resulting in the company’s stock rising nine percent at Rs.901 on the Bombay Stock Exchange after an intra-day high of Rs.924.
According to Sharma, ONGC has earmarked an expenditure of $19 billion till 2012 of which more than 90 percent would be towards exploring fresh energy assets in the country. Its overseas arm ONGC Videsh will spend around $11 billion.
He said the company produced 26.05 million tonnes of crude in 2006-07, up seven percent over the previous year, and maintained the natural gas output at 22.44 billion cubic metres despite disruptions on account of floods at Hazira.
He said nine offshore projects were underway to augment oil production and three onshore projects were aimed at improved oil recovery and value-addition. These envisaged an oil gain of 110 metric tonnes by 2030.
The ONGC chairman said he was hoping to get international market price for gas discovered by the company as opposed to state-administered pricing that is well below $2 per million British thermal unit (mBtu).
“We should be able to get a fair deal. The Reliance issue has been resolved and we expect the government to soon take a decision on this,” Sharma said, referring to the price of $4.2 per mBtu approved for Reliance gas.
Speaking about the group’s overseas presence, Sharma said after the addition of nine more properties in the previous fiscal, ONGC Videsh had 26 projects spread in 15 countries, including Vietnam, Sudan, Libya, Syria Iran, Iraq and Russia.
This, he said, had resulted in overseas oil and gas production climb 25 percent to 7.95 million tonnes, and turnover jump 48 percent to Rs.115 billion ($2.8 billion).