Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) will hire another rig and drill three more wells in the Krishna Godavari (KG) basin as it has located four fault blocks from the site where it found a large quantity of gas last month."The new rig will enable us to go further than 5,061 metres where huge reserves of gas exist," D J Pandian, managing director of GSPC, said today.GSPC will be acquiring three-dimensional siesmic data for another 500 square km in the eastern region that was left out earlier.The hiring of the rigs could cost more than $1 lakh per day. The existing rig can go only up to 5061 m, but it has been found that large quantities of gas exist below this level and hence the need for new rigs, Pandian said.Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi had announced last month the discovery of natural gas in the KG basin, claiming it was the biggest in the country with an estimated reserve of 20 trillion cubic feet (TCF) worth $50 billion.The GSPC board will meet on July 19, and decide whom to hire for the project, Pandian said, adding a contract will be awarded by international bidding for which tenders have already been floated. (PTI)
