Oil and Natural Gas Corporation

Timeline

1. 1955The Government of India sets up the Oil and Natural Gas Directorate under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Scientific Research, staffed with geologists drawn from the Geological Survey of India.Exploration is moved into the public sector
2. 1956The directorate is raised to a commission in August, and on 14 August ONGC is founded to plan, promote and carry out exploration and production of oil and gas.The company still counts this as its founding date
3. 1959Parliament converts the commission into a statutory body, the Oil and Natural Gas Commission, with wider financial and administrative powers.
4. 1961The Cambay basin in Gujarat is opened up and Ankleshwar becomes the first large onshore discovery outside Assam.It gave India a second oil province
5. 1963Oil and gas are found in Sivasagar district of Assam, and fields are established at Lakwa, Gelekey and Rudrasagar.
6. 1970ONGC moves offshore and discovers the Bombay High field, later renamed Mumbai High, in the Arabian Sea about 160 kilometres off Mumbai.The find changed the country's oil map
7. 1989The overseas arm is renamed ONGC Videsh Limited, with a mandate to prospect for oil and gas acreage outside India.One of the first foreign investments by an Indian public sector company
8. 1994ONGC is listed in February with 20 per cent of its equity sold to the public and 80 per cent retained by the government.
9. 2003ONGC Videsh acquires Talisman Energy's 25 per cent stake in the Greater Nile project in Sudan.
10. 2004The government sells a further stake in a public offer and ONGC becomes a widely held listed company.Part of a divestment programme that ran for more than a decade
11. 2006A commemorative coin set marks the fiftieth anniversary, making ONGC only the second Indian company after State Bank of India to be honoured that way.