ONGC Sets Aside Rs. 4,600 Crore to Boost Eastern Offshore Oil & Gas Output

New Delhi – Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) plans to invest over ?4,600 crore in projects aimed at increasing oil and gas production from its offshore fields in eastern India. The plans include drilling additional wells, laying an offshore pipeline, and building a gas processing facility in Andhra Pradesh’s Konaseema district.

The company has sought approval from the Ministry of Environment and Forests for the project. As part of the clearance process, ONGC has been asked to conduct a biodiversity assessment to measure the impact of drilling and prepare an environmental restoration plan.

The targeted field lies 35 km off the Andhra Pradesh coast in waters between 300 and 3,200 meters deep. The discoveries there are grouped into three clusters, covering 697 sq km.

Recently, ONGC ramped up production from its deepwater Krishna Godavari (KG) Basin project. The company aims to further increase output in the second half of FY25 by reducing the time taken to bring new wells online.

On October 30, 2024, ONGC opened three oil wells in the KG-DWN-98/2 deepwater block’s “A-field,” raising total oil output to around 25,000 barrels per day from eight active wells in Cluster-II. The remaining five wells in the cluster are set to be opened soon.

In parallel, ONGC and Oil India Ltd (OIL) have begun an ambitious exploration program in the ultra-deep waters of the Andaman Sea. For the first time, drilling is reaching depths of up to 5,000 meters. One exploratory well, ANDW-7, has found promising signs, including light crude, condensate, and heavy hydrocarbons.

These findings confirm the presence of an active thermogenic petroleum system in the Andaman region, comparable to those in Myanmar and North Sumatra, according to Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri. While commercial viability is yet to be determined, the results pave the way for more targeted exploration.

ONGC has so far discovered hydrocarbons in 20 blocks, with estimated reserves of 75 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent. OIL has made seven discoveries over the past four years, holding about 9.8 million barrels of oil and 2,706 million standard cubic meters of gas in estimated reserves.

With inputs from IANS