ONGC to pump in $1 bn in eastern offshore oil finds

NEW DELHI: State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) will invest about USD 1 billion in the oil finds it has made in eastern offshore and will begin production by mid-2010, ONGC Director (Offshore) Sudhir Vasudeva said today.

ONGC is planning integrated cluster development of oil discoveries in shallow water blocks G-4-6, GS-29, G-4-5 and discoveries in deep-sea block KG-DWN-98/2, he told reporters.

"First oil is expected sometime in mid-2010," he said. ONGC will follow the same model employed by Reliance Industries for producing oil from in the neighbouring predominantly gas rich KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block.

The company is planning to use a Floating Production, Storage and Offloading vessel that will collect and process oil from wells in the middle of the sea and transfer it to ships for transportation to refineries, Vasudeva said.

Oil production could be in the range of 8,000 barrels of oil per day to begin with.

ONGC also plans to tie up 10 gas discoveries in KG-DWN- 98/2 with the G-29, GS-4 and Vashistha gas finds in a shallow water block KG-OS-DW4 in the same KG basin, he said.

Gas production may begin by 2013, he said, adding Vashistha and neighbouring S-1 discovery alone would yield 6 million standard cubic meters per day of output.

Overall gas production from the integrated project is estimated at 25 mmscmd.