Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has challenged the decision of director-general of hydrocarbons (DGH) to disregard a major gas discovery off the Andhra coast saying the regulator's head V K Sibal had concurred with the MDT test that established in-place reserves of over 14 TCF.Sibal had, on Tuesday, stated that he had "disallowed" ONGC's gas discovery in an ultra-deep sea well in Krishna Godavari basin as the company had abandoned the well without doing conventional testing.ONGC said DGH's representative Sandip Kumar Gupta was present on the deep sea drill-ship 'Belford Dolphin' from December 9 to 15 when Straddle-packer MDT test was done and logs taken from well UD-1 to establish natural gas reserves."The conventional testing was not carried out not because of well complications as has been cited (by Sibal) but because it was not necessary," ONGC wrote to DGH in response the discovery in block KG-DWN-98/2 being disallowed.The company, in a similar letter to the oil ministry, also stated that Sibal, during a luncheon meeting with ONGC chairman R S Sharma on August 18, 2006, had accepted MDT as a conclusive testing methodology for establishing hydrocarbon reserves."The non-acceptance of discovery has come as a surprise, and it is difficult to comprehend the motive behind it," the company said.The company said it stood by its assessment of 2.09 to 6.73 TCF initial in-place volumes in the northern structure and 2.61 to 8.03 TCF in the southern structure identified through the UD-1 well. "The in-place volumes for both the culminations range from 2.09 TCF to 14.76 TCF."
