Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the country’s largest oil and gas producer, and Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC), have revised their estimates of gas reserves in their blocks off the country’s east coast by nearly three times.
ONGC says its gas reserves in its blocks in the Krishna-Godavari basin is 6.37 trillion cubic feet (tcf). “This includes smaller discoveries made in the basin,” said the company’s Chairman and Managing Director RS Sharma.
The Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), the government agency which presides over the exploration and production sector, has already approved reserves of around 2 tcf in ONGC’s first discovery in a ultra deepwater well in the basin.
GSPC has also said its gas reserves in its Deendayal block in the basin is 5.6 tcf, higher than the 1.6 tcf that the DGH has already approved. The Gujarat-based company has discovered gas in more wells in the block and has now revised its earlier estimates, a company official said. This estimate, however, does not include its recent gas discovery in a new well in the Deendayal block, studies of which are currently being carried out. “The final reserves could be much higher,” the official said.
The revised reserves of the two companies taken together is around 14 tcf, larger than Reliance Industries’ reserve of 11.3 tcf in the D6 block in the K-G basin, the largest discovery in the country so far.
“We will now plan development programme for the block. The shortage of rigs, however, is still an issue,” said DK Pande, director (exploration), ONGC.
The company plans to start producing gas from its deepwater block in the K-G basin from 2013, once a rig arrives in 2010 and carries out further drilling in the block.
Gas availability in India, including imports, is only half the demand. Many power and fertiliser plants use more expensive naphtha and diesel as fuel due to the shortage of gas, which increases their cost of production.
Many other industries have stopped functioning in the absence of gas. It is projected that Reliance’s gas from the K-G basin, which is expected to flow at the end of this year, will wipe out the demand-supply gap.
Gas is also cheaper than oil, and is environmentally cleaner. As gas production from the country’s fields increases, the dependence on oil is also likely to reduce. India imports over three-fourths of its oil requirement.
