ONGC mulls drilling nine development wells in 2 fields

Hyderabad: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd is planning to undertake drilling of nine development wells in KG-OSN-2004/1 and GS-49-2 fields beside creation of other infrastructure in KG Basin with an investment outlay of Rs 3,750 crore.

According to the minutes of meeting of Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change held recently, the PSU sought ministry's nod to prepare Terms of Reference for the project.

"Cost of project is Rs 3,750 Crore. Drilling will be done for 45-60 days for each well. It is reported that no national parks, Reserve Forest (RF)/ Protected Forests (PF), Biosphere Reserves, Tiger/Elephant Reserves, etc lies within 10 km distance.

However, during presentation PP (project proponent- ONCG) informed that pipeline is passing through forest land and stage-1 forest clearance for this area has been obtained for S-1 Vashishta," the EAC said.

The project involves the Integrated Development of block KG-OSN-2004/1 and GS-49-2 field in KG Offshore involves constructing new onshore facilities, Drilling and completion of 7 new wells in KG-OSN-2004/1 and 2 new wells in GS- 49-2 prospect, Subsea pipeline from offshore to new onshore terminal with a carrying capacity of 6.4 MMSCMD of gas while the new onshore facility is to be constructed for 8 MMSCMD of gas, it said.

Similarly, the PSU sought permission from MoEF to drill as many as 15 exploratory wells in NELP-I offshore Block KG-DWN-98/2 in KG-Basin.

The offshore block KG-DWN-98/2 with an area of 7294.6 sq km was initially awarded to Cairn Energy India with 100 percent in the 1st round of NELP bidding in April 2000.

Subsequently, south-eastern part of the block with an area of 2462 sq kms was relinquished in 2004. In March 2005, ONGC acquired 90 percent stake and operatorship and subsequently acquired total 100 percent stake of the block.