ONGC board ‘notes' three oil, gas finds

The ONGC board, which met on Thursday, took note of three oil and gas discoveries that were reported in March by the company. Of these, two discoveries were on the east coast and one in Gujarat.

These blocks were given to ONGC prior to the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) regime, on nomination basis.

According to a statement issued by the company, the board took note of a discovery in South Mahadevapatnam-1 in East Godavari district, Andhra Pradesh, which flowed gas from two intervals at the rate of 6,883 cubic metres/day and 15,384 cubic metres/day.

The second discovery was in well GSKW-6 in Krishna Godavari shallow offshore, which flowed oil and gas from two intervals.

In the first interval, the flow was 52.3 cubic metres/day of oil and 1, 40,616 cubic metres/day of gas; in the second interval, it was 74.4 cubic metres/day of oil and 68,736 cubic metres/day of gas.

A small quantity of 7.02 cubic metres/day of oil flowed through a third interval, the statement said.

According to the statement, the third discovery was in Gujarat, in well South Kadi-155, which flowed 30 cubic metres/day of oil.

Clears capex investment

The board has approved a capex investment of Rs 3,241.03 crore for first phase development of Cluster-7 marginal fields in the western offshore. The scheme envisages development of three marginal fields B-192 (oil), B-45 and WO-24 (oil and gas), located in BH-DS block of Mumbai Offshore.

ONGC says that the first phase envisages installation of four new fixed well platforms and drilling of 20 development wells from which the cumulative production of oil and gas for 16 years is expected to be 9.73 million tonnes and 4.52 billion cubic metres, respectively. The project is scheduled to be completed within 35 months and first oil is expected in March, 2012.

The statement says that the board also gave its nod to an R&D pilot project for exploration of shale gas (unconventional natural gas and major future source of on-land gas), costing an estimated Rs 128 crore, in the Damodar Basin where ONGC has ventured into exploration and production of coal bed methane.

The board also gave its go-ahead for procurement of five open-hole and four cased-hole production logging units with hi-tech technology costing Rs 419.03 crore. This is to replace the existing logging units which have outlived their useful life and are technologically obsolete.

Source: Hindu Business Line

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