Drilling kicks off at Ravva oil field

NEW DELHI: Cairn Energy and its joint venture partners — ONGC and Videocon Industries — have started drilling campaign in the Ravva oil field, off the Andhra coast. The JV plans to drill five in-fill wells — a nine-month long programme — to allow the Ravva oilfield to stay on plateau production of 50,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) until the end of ’07. The drilling is expected to result in an incremental oil production of 18.5m barrels.

Six infill wells and one firm exploration prospect will be drilled using the Hercules rig which arrived in the region from Malaysia recently. In addition to these seven wells, there are options for this rig to drill further five wells, a company source said. The Rig-31, a mat supported jack up rig from Hercules Offshore reached Kakinada port recently from the Johor port in Malaysia where it had undergone an extensive refurbishment, it added.

“Cairn continues to invest in its operations throughout India. Ravva has been the cornerstone of Cairn’s development in India over the past 10 years and this is the latest investment that Cairn is making along with its partners in the Ravva field,” spokesperson of Cairn said. The rig is now safely in place offshore in the Ravva field and drilling operations on the first well has started.

Ravva oil production levels, which were approximately 3,700 bopd before Cairn took over as operator of the block, were increased first to 35,000 bopd in the second quarter of 1997 and subsequently to the current plateau rate of 50,000 bopd in the first quarter of 1999, the company claimed.

To ensure uninterrupted drilling through continuous supply of equipment, fuel and consumables, a ware barge, Ismaya (similar to an onshore warehouse) has been mobilised for the first time and will be anchored near the rig to support the drilling operations, it said.