The country’s crude oil production fell over 4 per cent in the financial year 2018-19 after aging fields of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd (OIL) missed the target, official data showed Thursday.

India produced 34.2 million tonne of crude oil in the fiscal year ended March 31, down from 35.7 million tonne in the previous year, according to data released by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas here.

ONGC output dropped to 21 million tonne from 22.25 million tonne in 2017-18, while OIL saw a 2.5 per cent dip to 3.3 million tonne.

Fields in the private sector saw a production drop of nearly 2 per cent to 9.8 million tonne mainly because of lower output at Cairn India’s Rajasthan oilfields.

ONGC production was lower due to technical issues at its Mumbai and Neelam Heera fields in the Arabian Sea and less than the production at Santhal and Balol fields in Gujarat.

During March, the country’s total crude oil production fell to 2.85 million tonne from 3.04 million tonne in the corresponding month of the previous fiscal year.

Natural gas production, however, edged up to 32.9 billion cubic metre (BCM) in 2018-19, from 32.6 BCM in the previous year as ONGC produced 5.3 per cent more gas at 24.67 BCM.

Higher production by ONGC made up for a nearly 14 per cent drop in output from private sector fields at 5.47 BCM.

This was a result of shutting down of two more wells at Reliance Industries’ eastern offshore D1-D3 gas fields in the flagging KG-D6 block, the ministry statement said.

Indian refineries produced 2 per cent higher fuel and other petroleum products at 257.2 million tonne in 2018-19 on a better showing by state-owned firms.