RIL, ONGC to resume work at Panna-Mukta fields

"Weather permitting, crude oil production may resume by tomorrow morning. The output will however be between 15,000 to 17,000 barrels per day only as repair work are still on," an official said.     

Panna-Mukta field was producing 40,000 bpd oil and 5.5 million standard cubic meters per day gas before the June 3 blast that killed one person.     

Oil cannot be produced at full capacity as at those levels accompanying gas will have to be flared. Gas flaring is done at a place which is very close to the equipments that are being repaired and repairs cannot happen if the temperature goes up, he said.     

Gas production is likely to resume in 2-3 weeks. After the accident, Reliance-BG-ONGC consortium declared force majeure (meaning unforeseeable circumstance that prevents someone from fulfilling a contract).

As per the contract, oil from the fields is sold to Indian Oil and gas to Gail India. The official said production from adjacent Tapti field has however not been affected and the output is being ramped up to partially make up for the outage.     

Tapti field output has been ramped up by 1.5-2 million standard cubic meters per day to 13.5 mmscmd.     

Panna-Mukta and Tapti fields during normal course produced 17.3 mmscmd of gas and 40,000 barrels per day of oil. Gail in turn has also declared force majeure on its customers and will be doing a proportionate cut.