Oil India Limited

Oil India Limited (OIL) is a fully integrated Exploration and production company in the upstream sector, with its origin dating back to the glorious year (1889) of oil discovery in India. A Maharatna Company, OIL is a state-owned enterprise of the Government of India, under the administrative control of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and is the second largest national oil and gas company in India.

The story of OIL traces and symbolizes the growth and development of the Indian petroleum Industry. From the discovery of crude oil in the far east of India at Digboi, Assam in 1889 to its present status as a fully integrated National Exploration and Production company with footprints across the entire E&P value chain. The company is India’s second-largest National E&P Company.

Oil India Private Limited was incorporated on 18 February 1959, to expand and develop the newly discovered oil fields of Naharkatiya and Moran in the North-Eastern region of India. In 1961, it became a joint venture company of the Government of India and Burmah Oil Company Limited, UK. In 1981, OIL became a wholly owned Government of India enterprise.

The Authorized Share Capital of the Company is Rs. 2,000 Crore. The Issued, Subscribed, and Paid Share Capital of the Company is Rs. 1,084.41 Crore comprising of 108.44 crore shares of Rs. 10 each. At present, the Government of India, the Promoter of the Company is holding 56.66% of the total Issued & Paid-up Capital of the Company. The balance 43.34% of the Equity capital is held by the Public and others including Bodies Corporate, Mutual Funds, Banks, FPIs, Resident Individuals etc. OIL is the first oil & gas company to list its bonds on the International Securities Market, London Stock Exchange in 2019.

OIL has carved a niche as a leading oil and gas company in the upstream sector with a legacy of hydrocarbon exploration for over six decades and a share of around 9% of the country’s total crude oil and natural gas production. The company has a significant presence across the entire value chain in the hydrocarbon sector, it also produces Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and transports crude oil and refined petroleum products through cross-country pipelines. The company’s In-Country operations are spread over the areas in the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan and offshore areas in Andaman, Kerala-Konkan and KG shallow waters. The Company is operating in 03 (three) PEL and 25 (twenty-five) PML areas, allotted under the nomination regime in the States of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. The Company also holds Participating Interest (PI) in 06 (6) NELP Blocks with operatorship in 04 (four) Blocks and as Non-operator in the remaining 02 (two) Blocks as of 31-03-2021. The Company has further expanded its acreage base through participation under the Government of India’s Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) bid rounds. The company has been awarded 29 blocks covering 53,859 sq km under (OALP) for carrying out E&P activities.

Besides having a Pan-India presence, OIL has Participating Interest (PI) in blocks in eight countries overseas viz Russia, USA, Venezuela, Mozambique, Nigeria, Gabon, Bangladesh & Libya.

OIL owns and operates a wide array of facilities & equipment to carry out seismic & geodetic work, 2D & 3D data acquisition, processing & analysis, drilling, oil & gas field development & production, LPG production and Pipeline transportation, with all other ancillary services to make it a fully integrated E&P Company. It has vast experience in reservoir management of ageing/ depleting fields and expertise in Improved Oil Recovery (IOR)/Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) operations. It has over 2,000 km of trunk & feeder pipeline with in-house Operation and Maintenance.

The company operates a 1157 Km long crude oil pipeline in the North East for transportation of crude oil produced by both OIL and ONGCL in the region, to feed Numaligarh, Guwahati, Bongaigaon and Barauni refineries and branch line to feed Digboi refinery. Besides its crude oil trunk pipeline, OIL had also commissioned a 660 Kms long product pipeline from Numaligarh Refinery to Siliguri.

It has also ventured into the City Gas Distribution (CGD) projects to diversify into non E&P energy value chain. On March 25th, 2021, OIL acquired majority stake in Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) having state-of-the-art 3 MMTPA refinery in Assam, resulting in OIL becoming the promoter and the holding company of NRL. Besides, the Company also has stake in Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Limited (BCPL).

As one of its strategic initiatives, OIL has also selectively diversified into the Renewable & Alternate Energy sector, installing and commissioning RE projects in the Wind and Solar domains with total installed capacity of 188.10 MW comprising 174.10 MW of Wind Energy projects and 14 MW of Solar Energy projects.

The Company’s financial prudence is reflected in the strong credit rating ascribed by International and Domestic ratings agencies. While Moody’s Investor Service has ascribed ‘Baa3’ (Outlook Stable), Fitch Ratings has given ‘BBB-’ (Outlook Stable) both are at par with India’s Sovereign rating. The CARE ratings given are CARE AAA (Outlook Stable) and CARE A1+ for Long Term and Short Term respectively. Rating agency CRISIL has given CRISIL AAA (Outlook Stable) and CRISIL A1+ for Long Term and Short Term respectively. Both CARE RATINGS and CRISIL has given their highest ratings to the Company.