ONGC plans to invest $10 bn in gas discoveries

NEW DELHI: State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation plans to invest over USD 10 billion in bringing to production gas discoveries off the east coast, its Director (Exploration) D K Pande said today.

ONGC is aiming to develop finds in Krishna Godavari basin through four different projects, he said on the sidelines of the Petrotech-2010 oil and gas conference here.

"We are targeting 25-30 million standard cubic meters per day of natural gas production by 2014-15," he said.

The G-1 and G-15 fields will produce 2 mmscmd of natural gas from 2011 while S-1 and Vasistha deep-water project will produce 5 mmscmd.

However, the major push will come from development of finds in and around block KG-DWN-98/2, which sits next to Reliance Industries' giant KG-D6 block.

Pande said the block now has 10 gas discoveries and ONGC plans to tie-up nine of these with six gas finds in neighbouring 1G block to produce 20-25 mmsmcd from 2014-15.

"This development will cost USD 4.5 billion," he said. Another USD 5 billion will be needed to develop the ultra-deepsea UD-1 discovery in the KG-DWN-98/2. This discovery will be developed at a later date.

ONGC is in talks with energy majors BP Plc, Exxon Mobil, BG Group and Eni for a strategic tie-up for developing the KG basin discoveries.

Besides, ONGC plans to produce 10,000-20,000 barrels of oil per day from G-4-6, GS-29-1 and G-4-5 by 2012-13, he said.

The company has commissioned an onshore processing terminal at Odalarevu that will receive hydrocarbons from GS-15 field. The terminal is 90-km south-east of Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh.

ONGC has approached the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) for declaring commerciality of nine discoveries in the northern part of the KG-DWN-98/2 block.

The southern exploration area of the block includes the UD-1 deepwater discovery, which is being appraised, Pande said.

The UD-1 discovery was made at a water depth of 2,841 metres and in-place reserves have been estimated at about 82.3 billion cubic meters of gas.

ONGC holds 90 per cent interest in the block and the rest is with Cairn India.