Cairn, partners plan $44 mn drilling programme in Ravva field

Cairn India and its JV partners are all set to undertake a $44 million drilling campaign in the eastern offshore Ravva field of the Krishna-Godavari Basin from April 1 this year, sources close to the development said.

"Cairn, which is the operator of the Ravva field, held a series of meetings last month with partners ONGC, Videocon and Marubeni-controlled Ravva Oil to discuss the work programme and budget for the 2011-12 fiscal," sources told PTI.

The meeting attended by officials of the upstream regulator, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, outlined plans to drill two new 'infill' wells and 'workover' two old Ravva wells by March, 2012.

Cairn India and its joint venture partners have completed a 4D seismic campaign in the acreage and data interpretation is underway to identify bypassed oil zones.

However, sources said they could not estimate the quantum of oil or gas that can be further recovered from the wells at this stage.

"The Ravva consortium hopes to strike bypassed pools of oil. The programme aims to find oil left untapped by earlier drilling campaigns. Its difficult to say how much additional oil and gas could be gained from these planned wells," they said.

According Cairn, the average gross production from the Ravva field in Q3, FY2010-11, was 39,434 barrels of oil equivalent per day, comprising average oil production of 29,667 barrels per day and average gas production of 59 million standard cubic feet per day.

The infill drilling campaign is aimed at augmenting production and a drill rig, Aban-II, was hired last year for the purpose.

The Ravva asset is a mature field. Cairn India is the operator of the 331.26-sq km Ravva field with a 22.5 per cent stake, while Videocon Petroleum holds 25 per cent, ONGC holds 40 per cent and Marubeni-owned Ravva Oil holds a 12.5 per cent participating interest.