ONGC-Teri to bid for $3-bn Kuwait slick clean-up contract

The JV might have to use ONGC balance sheet to be eligible

ONGC Teri Biotech Limited (OTBL), the joint venture between state-run explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and The Energy and Research Institute (Teri), will bid for the Rs 15,000-crore desert oil slick clean-up contract in Kuwait.

Banwari Lal, director and CEO of OTBL and director, environment and industrial biotechnology at Teri, told Business Standard: “The Kuwait Oil Company has engaged a project monitoring consultant to prepare the tender specifications. We hope that the specifications would be ready by January 2013. It will be a global tender and we will bid for the same.”

The contract is to clear the oil slick created in the Gulf war following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The contract being a $3-billion project, OTBL might have to use ONGC’s balance sheet to be eligible to bid for the project. This, however, needs the approval of the ONGC board.

ONGC has a 49.98 per cent stake in OTBL, while Teri’s stake is 48.02 per cent.

"Given the project is of a big nature, we may also look at forming a consortium with the international players. OTBL is a growing company. This will be a first big international project for OTBL," said Lal.

OTBL will use oil zapper technology, where a mix of bacteria destroy the oil part of the contaminated soil.

The oil zapper technology can clean up both offshore and onshore oil spills. ONGC has applied this at Mehsana (Gujarat), one of the largest onshore assets of ONGC.

OTBL has also developed a new technology called anti-paraffin degrading bacterial (PDB) at the Institute of Reservoir Studies in Ahmedabad. PDB can prevent paraffin wax from depositing in the tubing and casing pipe of a well.