Reserves estimated at 1.5 trillion cubic feet.
Australia’s Oilex Ltd today said it had made a huge natural gas discovery in Gujarat that may hold over 1.5 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of recoverable reserves.
Industry estimates put the total resource base or inplace reserves in the Cambay basin discoveries near the town of Khambat, 160 km south of Ahmedabad, at between 20 and 30 tcf, almost equivalent to inplace reserves of Reliance Industries’ eastern offshore KG-D6 fields.
However, KG-D6 fields have a higher recovery factor, with almost 12 tcf of gas likely to be produced over life of the field, while in Oilex’s case, only 1.5 tcf can be produced as the reservior is ‘tight’ with low permeability.
Oilex had drilled many wells on the Cambay Field and it today announced “a significant upgrade to its reserves and contingent resources” based on evaluation by North American consultants NuTech Energy Alliance and Morning Star LLC.
In a press statement, Oilex said the Cambay Field may hold 853 billion cubic feet (bcf) of reserves justified for development plus another 720 bcf of contingent resources, totaling the recoverable reserves at 1.5 tcf.
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Oilex holds 45 per cent interest in the Cambay Field while Gujarat State Petroleum Corp (GSPC) holds the remaining 55 per cent. The field was awarded to GSPC and Canada’s Niko Resources in pre-New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) rounds in the 1990s and Oilex steped-in upon exit of Niko.
“This (reserve estimation) follows a nine-month programme of extensive technical studies on the Cambay Field ‘tight’ reservoirs using proprietary low permeability reservoir technologies derived from similar ‘tight/shale gas’ projects in North America,” Oilex said.
Besides gas, the field also holds 31 million barrels of condensate. “The estimates have not been endorsed by the Government of India or the (oil regulator) Directorate General of Hydrocarbons,” it said.