Technology, capital intensive interventions have potential to give new lease of life to matured oil fields: Moily

Petroleum Minister Dr. M. Veerappa Moily has said that technology and capital intensive interventions have the potential to give new lease of life to the matured fields and improving recovery factor.

"Even from producing fields, our recovery factor is in the range of 25-33 percent whereas fields in North Sea or in Gulf of Mexico of same vintage have recovery factors of over 40 percent. Secondary and tertiary recovery technologies now boast of a recovery factor of 60 percent to 75 percent, he said while inaugurating "IEF NOC-IOC Forum" in its third edition here yesterday.

He further said India has huge resource base but a huge volume of these reserves has not been exploited yet. India has total prognosticated resource of 205 billion barrels of O+OEG, out of which only 68 billion barrels has been established as in-place volume. Out of 26 basins, exploration is yet to be initiated in 11 basins.

"The Forum is deliberating upon the challenges that lie ahead, the investments that is needed to pursue larger objectives and the Cooperation that is required to exploit the huge oil and gas propositions that are still underlying beneath the surface," he added.

Dr Moily also said that, " oil and gas industry is seeing the unprecedented dynamism now days. Technology and innovation has made it possible to scale inaccessible, hard to visualize, uneconomical frontiers and unconventional. Unconventional is fast turning into game changers. Frontiers like Deep and ultra-deep waters, Arctic, unconventional have become 'Hot Spots'.

Existing assets are getting new life. Peak is nose-diving and industry is now pumping more. Much has already come and more to come with sincere efforts being made to improve recovery factor with tertiary recovery still to take place," he added.

He further said that India, the second fastest growing economy of the world, is also striving hard. With 17 percent of world population, India has just 0.35 percent of oil reserves and 0.6 percent of natural gas reserves but witnessing a huge demand of energy resources owing to its growth projections.

Elaborating various initiatives towards enhancing oil and gas production, Dr. Moily emphasized that moving towards self-sufficiency goal will be a very significant step in the history of our nation. Over the years, our nation's dependence on oil imports has only increased. Numerous forecasts also portend that over the next many years, our dependence on imported oil will increase further.

Given all the forecasts, we are taking every possible initiatives to work towards self-sufficiency in petroleum. " We will do everything, which is possible, so that we are able to meet our self-sufficiency goal", he underscored.

Moily also said that India already has secured supply deal of around 14 mmtpa and around 20 mmtpa deals are in the pipeline. But challenge before us is that Landed cost is expected to remain high in the lower range of $10-$12 /mmbtu, not in the range of $4-$5/mmbtu which customers are used to.

"Making this LNG a cheaper comparable fuel option is a great task. LNG pricing is fast turning into an issue. Importers now desire to move away from oil-linked gas prices to henry hub gas pricing on account of high price band in which oil is hovering around. So how new deals will take place, is fast turning into a watchable game," Dr. Moily commented.