Cairn JV to invest $100 mn to drill deeper well in KG basin

Cairn India and its joint venture partners of Ravva fields are planning to invest about $100 million to drill a deeper well in the Krishna-Godavari basin.

The JV plans to drill the exploration well to 4,000 meters deep, and estimates that the deepwater prospect in the Ravva Oil Fields may hold about 350-billion cubic feet of 'recoverable gas', sources told PTI.

"The drilling program is expected to start in the second half of next financial year. In a recently concluded meeting, the Ravva JV has approved the operator's proposal to drill one exploratory well with an estimated investment of $90-100 million," a source said.

JV officials could not be reached for their comments.

Cairn India, with 22.5% stake as an operator in the venture, shares Ravva with Marubeni-owned Ravva Oil (12.5%), Videocon (25%) and ONGC (40%).

The PSC was signed in 1994 with Command Petroleum as operator, which sold its stake to Cairn.

According to industry experts the JV will need a rig that can drill 'high temperature/high pressure' well in water depths of up to 20 meters.

Last month, while announcing its results for the quarter ended September, Cairn India said that in the Ravva field, a "high-value, high-risk" prospect had been identified, and exploratory well drilling here was scheduled for the first half of 2013-14.

The average gross production from the Ravva field for H1 FY 2012-13 was 30,591 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Ravva has already completed over 17 years of production.

Originally estimated to produce 101 million barrels of crude oil, the field has to date produced more than 249 million barrels and sold 310 billion cubic feet of gas.

Cairn and the Ravva JV have said they are confident of the field's considerable remaining reserve potential and of producing more oil from this block.

This has been possible only through life-cycle planning, continuous monitoring and the innovative application of operating technologies, sources added.

Meanwhile, Cairn India in a recent corporate presentation said an appraisal well drilling was planned in the first quarter of next year to evaluate size and commerciality of the second discovery it made in KG-Basin - Nagayalanka-SE.