ONGC gears for coal gasification project

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is gearing up for gas production at India’s first underground coal gasification (UCG) project on a pilot basis at Vastan Mine Block near Surat in Gujarat. The field is expected to produce about 5.5 lakh cubic metres of synthetic gas per day by end of 2010.

Once it achieves success in this pilot project, ONGC — which is the main operator for the field — aims to go commercial by producing about 2 billion cubic metres of the synthetic gas per annum from this field by 2013-2014, a senior company official close to the development said.

The investment for commercial rollout of the project would be in the range of Rs 1,000-2,000 crore and the field has enough reserves to last for about 30-40 years, sources said.

Apart from Vastan Field, ONGC is also looking to set up a UCG project at Bhavnagar in Gujarat and in Rajasthan, too.

The calorific value of synthetic gas is 10 times lower than natural gas.

So far, only Russia has achieved commercial success in a UCG project, while there have been pilot projects at a couple of places, including one in Australia.