Ahead of its public offer to dilute 10 per cent government stake, state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp said on Wednesday that its net worth has risen to Rs 42,250 crore (Rs 422.5 billion) as on December 31, 2003 from Rs 35,604 crore (Rs 356.04 billion) in the last fiscal.

"On account of acquisition of MRPL, acquisitions by its overseas arm ONGC Videsh Ltd and aggressive capital investment, the net worth of the company has risen by about $1.5 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal," ONGC chairman and managing director Subir Raha said at the inauguration of Oceantex 2004 in Mumbai.

He said the company was aggressively pushing capital investment in the last two years with new facilities being commissioned and new equipments and materials being purchased.

ONGC has undertaken major capital purchases since mid eighties to replace obsolete equipment, upgrade and acquire new equipment, he said, adding retail outlets would be launched by 2004-05 and the company was working for developing the "ONGC brand", which included total design, software, USP and product launch.

Raha said that domestic assets of the company would produce 26 million tonnes this fiscal while four million tonnes would be from the overseas operations.

On ONGC acquiring Cairn Energy assets, which includes CBS-2 and KGDWN-1, he said the company was awaiting cabinet approval and has finalised the cost.