ONGC to repay 30 billion yen Samurai loan in December

When contacted, ONGC director (finance) I N Chaterjee, told PTI "the payback will be out of company’s own reserves and it may not be required to borrow money from markets."

With this, ONGC would have cleared its entire Sumarai bond loan taken in three tranches of 20 billion yen in 1988, 20 billion yen in 1989 and 30 billion yen in 1990 for both operational and capital expenditure, sources said.

The corporation with the surpluses of Rs 5,500 crore is likely to post a net profit of over Rs 2,400 crore during the first half of the current fiscal, sources said adding that ONGC would also be funding its investments of about Rs 35,000 crore over the next five years from internal accruals.

ONGC would clear yet another loan of about $ 200 million by April next to bring down its total outstanding to $ 750 million from $ 1.2 billion at the beginning of the current fiscal.

ONGC would repay $ 150 million syndicated loan by the next finanial, sources said, adding the company’s foreign current loans stood at Rs 6,432.5 crore at the beginning of 2000-01.

The loans include a $ 200 million soft loan from World Bank which would be repaid in three years time, sources said.

Chaterjee said the organisation was constantly looking at the loan portfolio and the prevailing market condition with the view to restructre its loan portfolio as and when needed for minimising the impact interest outgo and maximising profits for the navaratna oil company.

Asked as to when ONGC would become a debt-free company, he said "we are virtually debt-free with debt equity ratio of 0.2:1".

He said most of the capital expenditure over the next five years including the redeveloping of Mumbai High would be met from internal resources.

ONGC has planned an investment of about Rs 8,000 crore for redevelopment of its prime Mumbai High oil and gas fields over the next four years.