ONGC’s Assam operation affected by continuous agitation

Continuous mindless agitation by various organisation of Sibsagar district have seriously affected production of the ONGC in Assam. Various organisations have been on agitation some or some pretext trying to arm-twist the oil major.

The latest round of agitation is around Performance Enhancement Contract(PEC), which has been propagated by the agitationist as clear sign of privatising the field.

But the ONGC press communiqué informed that it was rather contrary. "Nowadays to boost the production of the field, the increase of productivity has been linked with the outsourced contract. Which means the vendor gets paid when production is increased. No increase means no payment."

This clause has been propagated as a sign of handing over the oil field to the private parties by the vested interest. These vested interest groups under garb of various pressure groups have been milking the ONGC for long and reached to a position where normal functioning now could not be carried out properly.

A meeting was held with Toila Khetra Suraksha & Vikash Mancha, INTUC, UCWUA, BAYM, SNS, ACKS, Youth Congress, AGSF, ACMS, TAYPA, CPI and other organizations of the region at office of the SDO (Civil), Nazira was held on last Saturday which was chaired by SDO (Civil), Nazira on PEC (Production Enhancement Contract), which is being introduced in ONGC.

During the meeting, ONGC explained the concept & salient features of Production Enhancement Contract (PEC), its key advantages and its far-reaching objectives. It was made clear during the meeting that PEC is only an integrated service contract to boost production from the matured fields and neither intended for privatization nor sale of any oil fields.

The key features of the PEC is that the service providers shall bring comprehensive technologies to improve production at their cost whereas the ownership of the fields shall remain with the ONGC.

"PEC is an effort to boost production from the matured oil fields as a strategic way forward to realize the Hydrocarbon Vision 2030 for North East India, as envisaged by the Government of India and to realize Prime Minister's Vision of 10% import reduction in energy sector by 2022. Production Enhancement Contract (PEC) model is being followed worldwide by various E&P industries to enhance production from matured oil fields" an ONGC release said.

It is appealed to all concerned to support ONGC to increase production of oil and gas in the interest Assam in particular and the Nation in general