ONGC to focus on KG Basin

As part of re-engineering the KG Basin, Oil and natuaral gas Corporation (ONGC) is bringing its refurbished DP class-2 drilling ship, 'Sagar Vijay,' to the east coast of Kakinada in the first week of February.

The ship has the capacity to drill upto 900 meters of depth in water. The present drilling operations at Mumbai High, the largest oil-producing facility of ONGC, are limited up to 80-100 meters under water.

According to Subir Raha, the chairman of ONGC, who was here to participate in Petrolium geophysicists conference, besides Sagar Vijay, two charterd ships would soon be installed at west coat under the Sagar Samruddhi project, being taken up with $ 8 lakh investment per day for the next three years.

Belford Dolphin, the DP class-3 ship having the capacity to drill at up to 3000 meters under water, would be moved from UK to Gujarat coat, while the 'Discoverer of seven seas', a DP class-2 drilling ship, currently in Brazil, would be positioned at Mumbai High, Subir Raha said.

The latter can drill at up to depths of 1800 meters underwater. These two ships alone cost $ 700,000 per day.

On the latest efforts by ONGC to increase oil production over coming years, Subir Raha said that the corporation has proposed to drill about 47 new wells before the completion of tenth plan period.

With exploration and drilling operations being accelerated to meet the current demands, around Rs 10,000 crore were being spent each year on this front excluding overseas operations, while approved outlay for the entire plan period stood at Rs 46,000 crore, Raha said.

On the public offer plans, he said ONGC needed these revenues to sustain the investments as no banker will fund the risk ridden exploration operations.