ONGC marginal fields to boost output by a tenth in next 2 years

State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation will bring to production various clusters of its marginal fields on the western offshore in the next two years.

This, according to a senior ONGC official, would add six million tonnes of oil and 12-15 million standard cubic metres of gas per day to ONGC's current production.

ONGC accounts for 79 per cent of India's crude oil and 54 per cent of natural gas production. It produced 52.05 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe) from its domestic fields (including joint ventures) during 2009-10 against 52.45 mtoe in 2008-09. The production from marginal fields would amount to more than a tenth of the current production and help meet the shortfall created by decline in production from the existing fields.

Western offshore marginal fields which are planned to be put on production during the next two years include the B-22 cluster (four fields); North Tapti; B-46 cluster (four fields); B-193 cluster (eight fields) and B-192 cluster (two fields). The ONGC board had earlier approved development of various offshore marginal fields, including additional development of the D-1 field (13.962 million tonnes of oil by 2025) at an investment of Rs 2,163.6 crore.

The development of the North Tapti gas field (4.166 billion cubic metres gas by 2021) has been approved at an investment of Rs 755.7 crore and development of the Cluster-7 fields (9.73 million tonnes of oil and condensate and 4.52 billion cubic metres of gas by 2029) at an investment of Rs 3,241 crore.

During 2009-10 ONGC brought five new marginal fields to production. With this, 50 marginal fields are now on stream, with production of 2.0691 mtoe during 2009-10. "Of the 134 discoveries made since 2002 (21 of these in 2009-10), a total of 58 discoveries have already been put on production. Others are on the fast track of appraisal and development; especially the Cluster-7, WO series, B-193, D-1 additional, B-22, North Tapti etc,” Chairman R S Sharma had said in the company's annual report.

The development programme of the Northern Discovery Area in the KG-DWN is set to begin after the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons gives its seal on the declaration of commerciality. "We have also taken up expeditious development of the Daman-Tapti block. These (fields) are expected to propel our crude oil and gas production quite significantly in the next few years, with gas production over 100 million standard cubic meters per day by 2016," Sharma added.