Officers of government-owned oil and gas companies went on an indefinite strike in defiance of court orders Wednesday, provoking the Petroleum Ministry to threaten the leaders of the agitation with dismissal. Several members of the Oil Sector Officers Association (OSOA) have already been suspended or arrested.

A last-ditch compromise effort failed after the OSOA refused to talk until the ministry had revoked the suspension of 250 officers and released two arrested ONGC officers. The ministry did not accept the OSOA’s terms.

“They have informed us that next step is termination (orders) which they will start issuing from tomorrow,” OSOA president Amit Kumar said.

The strike resulted in the country losing close to Rs 7,000 crore today as crude oil and natural gas output crashed, processing was crippled at four refineries, and gas supply to fertilizer and power units along the Hazira-Bijapur-Jagdishpur (HBJ) pipeline was turned off.

A ministry official said the power generation capacity loss was 7,000 MW, and fertiliser production output loss 43,000 tonnes as 17 urea plants shut down in the face of insufficient gas. Two more urea units are likely to shut down on Thursday.

Petroleum Secretary R S Pandey said petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene supplies were normal, but industrial output had been hit. “On public life, impact is nil as of now. On industry, yes, on gas production, yes,” he said. There were reports, however, that some Air India (Domestic) and Jet Airways flights were affected early in the day.

Pandey said crude output from Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) had fallen to 270,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the usual 350,000 bpd. Gas production had fallen by 33 million standard cubic metres per day.