ONGC plans to invest Rs 40,000 cr in KG oil, gas finds

New Delhi: State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) will invest about Rs 40,000 crore in bringing to production oil and gas discoveries in its Krishna Godavari basin block KG-D5, chairman Dinesh K Sarraf said today.[caption id=“attachment_2008941” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representation image. Reuters[/caption] ONGC is using cluster approach to bring oil and gas finds in the block KG-DWN-98/2 or KG-D5, which sits next to Reliance Industries’ Bay of Bengal block KG-D6, to production by 2018-19. “We plan to submit a field development plan (FDP) for the discoveries by the second quarter. Total investment in eastern offshore will be over Rs 40,000 crore,” he told PTI in New Delhi. This will be the single largest investment by ONGC at one location. The block is divided into Northern Discovery Area (NDA) and Southern Discovery Area (SDA). Estimated reserves of NDA are 121 million tonnes of oil in place and 78 billion cubic meter of initial gas in place, and that of SDA are 80.9 bcm of initial gas in place. ONGC plans to develop the discoveries in the block in three clusters – 14.5 million standard cubic meters per day of gas for 15 years from Cluster-1 comprising of D&E finds of NDA in KG-D5 block and G-4 find in the a neighbouring area. Cluster-2A mainly comprises of oil finds in NDA which can produce 75,000 barrels per day (3.75 million tons per annum), ONGC Director (Offshore) Tapas Kumar Sengupta said. Cluster 2B, which is made up of four gas finds in NDA, envisages a peak output of 14 mmscmd of gas, with cumulative production of 32.5 bcm of gas in 14 years. “We are currently going ahead with the development of Cluster 2A and 2B as we do not have all approvals for Cluster-1 discoveries,” he said. Oil, he said, is planned to be produced using a floating production system (FPSO). A floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit is a floating vessel that receives oil from subsea, process it, and stores it until oil can be offloaded onto a tanker or ship for transportation to shore. ONGC plans to drill 14 oil wells and 10 water injectors in Cluster-2A and is expected to produce 31.5 million tons of oil in 15 years. “We plan to get first gas by mid-2018 and first oil by mid-2019,” he said. Cluster-3 is the UD-1 gas discovery in SDA. “UD-1 lies in water depth of 2400-3200 meters and there is no technology to produce from such depths. And so Cluster-3 is presently not being pursued for development,” he said. ONGC and RIL won KG-D5 and KG-D6 block in the first round of auction under New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) in 2000. RIL began production from the oil discovery in KG-D6 in September 2008 and put gas find on production in April 2009. PTI