Sakhalin oil may reach Indian shores on Nov 20
The first shipment of equity oil from Russian oilfield Sakhalin-I is expected to touch the Indian coast on November 20. ONGC’s $2.8bn in the Sakhalin project is the biggest investment so far in an overseas venture.
By Rajeev Jayaswal & Soma Banerjee, TNN |
NEW DELHI: The first shipment of equity oil from Russian oilfield Sakhalin-I is expected to touch the Indian coast on November 20. ONGC’s $2.8bn in the Sakhalin project is the biggest investment so far in an overseas venture.
With this, India is set to mark yet another milestone in its energy diversity as the first equity oil from Russia comes to the Mangalore Refinery. MRPL had also received earlier on the first cargo of equity crude from Sudan, the Greater Nile project.
ONGC is planning to develop MRPL as its petrochemical hub which will be a part of a special economic zone hosting an LNG complex, a refinery and a new petrochemical plant. ONGC Videsh (OVL), a foreign investment arm of ONGC, has projected to bring about 1,400,000 bbls of crude in two cargoes from the Sakhalin-I project to India by December ’06.
OVL has a 20% stake in the project. Sakhalin-I has three fields — Chayvo, Odoptu, and Arkutun Dagi. Production of crude in these fields will be undertaken in phases. Ultimately, 34 wells are planned to be drilled from sites during phase-I of the Sakhalin-I project development.
The first shipment of crude from Sakhalin-I will come to India in November this year, a source in the petroleum ministry told ET. Other equity partners in the venture are Exxon Neftegas (30%), Japan’s Sakhalin Oil & Gas Development (30%), SMNG-S (11.5%), and RN Astra (8.5%). Exxon Mobil’s affiliate Exxon-N is the operator of the project.
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While part of the crude would be refined at ONGC’s subsidiary MRPL, part of it could be auctioned. The crude is stated to be high-quality low-sulphur crude and ONGC is interested to refine it through its refining arm, sources said.The Sakhalin-I field is likely to produce about 12.5m tonnes of oil and 10bn cubic meter of gas annually at the peak of production. OVL would have a 20% stake in it. It is estimated that the total production of Sakhalin-I in its 40-year life span is around 306m tonnes of oil and 485bn cubic meter of gas. Earlier, India has received 1,407,000 tonnes of equity oil from OVL’s Sudan property.
OVL, which has 25% stake in Greater Nile Oil Project (GNOP), shipped 818,000 tonnes of crude from Sudan to India in ’03-04, 333,000 tonnes in ’04-05. The shipment has, however, been insignificant compared to total quantity of crude processed in the country.
In ’03-04, total crude processed in the country was 118,678,000 tonnes, which rose to 124,302,000 tonnes in ’04-05 and 126,986,000 tonnes in ’05-06. OVL has acquired Talisman’s 25% participating interest in the GNOP on March 12, ’03. India imports more than 70% of its crude oil requirement. Equity oil is one of its strategies towards energy security.
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