State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has kicked off a Rs 8,800-crore redevelopment of the southern part of its Mumbai High fields, using a cost-effective technology to maintain output from the prime western offshore fields.
“The Mumbai High South redevelopment Phase-II project will cost Rs 8,813.41 crore,” a company official said. The giant Mumbai High oil and gas field remains a challenge since its discovery in 1974. In its chequered production profile, the field hit a peak of 400,000 barrels per day before falling to current levels of 210,000 bpd, causing concerns in reservoir management.
“ONGC has decisively initiated schemes to maintain production from this field”, he said, adding the complex reservoir has thin oil bearing zones, as slim as three metres, with a highly heterogeneous flow capacity of rock, varying in thickness.
The present scheme envisages incremental gain of 18.31 million tonnes of oil and 2.70 billion cubic meters of gas through drilling of 75 new wells and intervention in existing wells. The work includes enhancement of oil and gas processing capacity through installation of one process platform bridge connected to the existing ICP platform and installation of four new well head platforms.
“The latest platform, RS12 is a special innovation, first for ONGC and India in the sense that this is a 16-slot platform rather than a conventional 9-slot or 12-slot platform,” the official said. This means as many as 16 wells can be drilled from this platform. “Eleven wells are planned for drilling in the current phase of development,” he added.