Hardeep Puri hails ONGC's highest-ever share surge

New Delhi, July 16
Union Minister for Petroleum and Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, on Tuesday hailed the new achievement by the public sector upstream giant Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) as its shares touched a record new high.

ONGC's share price surged past Rs 323 apiece with a 5.18 per cent intraday gain on Monday, propelling its market capitalisation to Rs 4.06 lakh crore.

"Congratulations to ONGC for this milestone achievement. The surge in the share prices -- the highest ever in ONGC's history -- is similar to share price performance across Oil and Gas PSUs," Minister Puri posted on X social media platform.

On Tuesday, the ONGC stock was trading at Rs 325 apiece, even higher than Monday's close.

ONGC is now the 15th most valuable listed company in the country and the third most valued PSU after the State Bank of India and the Life Insurance Corporation of India.

The Union Minister said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's guidance, leadership and timely decisions "have transformed our PSUs into confident and professional global energy leaders".

Last month, Minister Puri said that ONGC will start gas production from its eastern offshore deep-water field in the Krishna-Godavari block 'KG-DWN-98/2' soon.

ONGC has floated a tender to get an international tech partner, said the minister, adding that oil production will increase to 45,000 barrels per day very soon.

The combined profit of the public sector oil marketing companies for FY 2023-24 stood at Rs 86,000 crore, over 25 times higher than the extraordinarily difficult previous fiscal year.

The government last month reduced the windfall tax on petroleum crude to Rs 3,250 per metric tonne from Rs 5,200, as prices of crude oil have declined in the international market compared to the previous fortnight.

Upstream oil exploration and production companies ONGC and Oil India Ltd will benefit from the announcement as they have to pay the windfall tax on their crude oil output.