Mumbai (Platts)--12Nov2012/234 am EST/734 GMT

India's ONGC Videsh Ltd., the overseas exploration and production arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd., said Saturday its crude output plunged 33% year on year to 2.276 million mt (1.67 million barrels) over April-September, due mainly to production disruptions in Sudan and Syria.

Revenue fell 33.2% year on year to Rupees 82.8 billion ($1.5 billion) in the first half of its fiscal 2012-13 year, and profit 39.3% over the same period to Rupees 16.5 billion.

Natural gas production rose 4.8% year on year to 1.212 Bcm in fiscal H1, the company said in a statement.

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OVL said with the secession of South Sudan from Sudan in July 2011, its Blocks 1, 2 and 4 now straddle the two countries and Block 5A lies in South Sudan, and production at all four had been halted throughout fiscal H1.

"The government of South Sudan ordered shutdown of operations in January. [It] issued an order for the resumption of crude oil production and petroleum operations on October 18 subsequent to an agreement between the governments of the Republic of South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan on September 27," OVL said. Production at the four blocks is now likely to resume in the next few months, the company added.

In Syria, OVL said the current geopolitical situation, including EU sanctions and the restrictions they posed, had made operations difficult since December 2011.

In other regions, OVL said gas production had started in October at its Lan Do field in Block 06.1, Vietnam, and would add 0.2 Bcm to its production capacity at the block.

The company said it expects early commencement of production at two projects under development; Carababo 1 in Venezuela, by March 2013, and Blocks A1 and A3 in Myanmar, by July 2013.

OVL has interests in 31 projects in 15 countries, 10 of which are currently producing.

Its recent acquisition of a 2.72% participating interest in the BP-operated Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil field complex offshore Azerbaijan is expected to add 9% more proven reserves to OVL's reserves and 1 million mt/year (19,000 b/d) to its annual production.

--M.C.Vaijayanthi, newsdesk@platts.com --Edited by Wendy Wells, wendy_wells@platts.comwendy_wels@platts.com

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