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ONGC’s Kutch offshore block to start gas production after a year
In what may help India’s plan to move towards a gas-based economy, state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd’s (ONGC) Kutch offshore project is expected to start gas production after a year, said A.K. Dwivedi, director-exploration. This comes at a time when production is declining from ONGC’s assets. Its crude oil output fell to 6.34 million ton (MT) in the June quarter compared with 6.48 MT last year. Similarly, its gas production was down 5.6% to 5.49 billion cu. meters (bcm).
“ONGC made gas discovery in exploratory well GK-28#10 (GK-28-L) in GK-28 PML in Kutch Offshore of Western Offshore Basin. This is the first gas pool discovered in Deccan basalts in entire Western Offshore and may prove significant in terms of adding much needed critical gas volumes to GK-28/GK-42 development project,” ONGC said in a 11 February statement. “We are assessing the potential of this project, this shall continue for a year after which we intend to begin production which shall primarily consist of gas,” said Dwivedi.
India has set a target of natural gas contributing 15% to India’s energy mix from the current level of 6.5%. This will involve the public sector unit ramping up its production. However, domestic production is falling. India’s domestic gas production fell by 4.7% to 31.14 bcm in financial year 2015-16 from 32.69 bcm a year ago. According to the 2015-16 annual report of ONGC, the public sector unit’s oil and gas production accounts for 70% of country’s hydrocarbon output. India has 26 sedimentary basins covering an area of 3.14 million sq. km. out of which 7 basins have established commercial productions in progress. India has total reserves of 763.476 MT of crude oil and 1,488.73 bcm of natural gas.
“We are working on it (project) through cluster development and currently there are appraisal drillings going on,” added Dwivedi. Experts believe that given India’s target for clean fuel sources, natural gas production has to be exponentially increased. “To reach the target of 15%, current production has to be more than doubled. While it is early to judge the contribution of the project to India’s energy mix, it is surely a step in the right direction,” said R.S. Sharma, former chairman and managing director, ONGC. According to ONGC’s Perspective Plan 2030, it plans to produce 130 MT of oil and natural gas with 70 MT coming from its domestic production and the rest from its overseas subsidiary, ONGC Videsh Ltd. New England Patriots Jersey
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