ONGC strikes oil in Western Onshore Basin block

The public sector Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has announced that it has struck oil in a block in theWestern Onshore Basin, which had been awarded to it under the sixth round of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP).

A press release from the company said the exploratory well, Vadatal-1 in block CB-ONN-2004/2, drilled to a depth of 1784 metres, was found to be oil bearing.

"On conventional testing the interval flowed oil @ 37 m3/d through 6 mm bean (278 bbls/day) This discovery pertains to a NELP-VI Block (earlier relinquished part of GSPCL acreage CB-ON/2) in the Tarapur area of the Western Onshore Basin," the release said.

According to it, the discovery has opened up a large area for exploration and is under further assessment of its extent and potential.

The release also said that the ONGC Board of Directors had approved an investment of Rs 372.11 crore for development of BHE ad BH-35 area, east of Mumbai High South Field.

BHE was first discovered in 1976 and was again taken up for delineation in 1983 but was not deemed economically viable at the then prevailing prices of oil and gas. Based on integrated study of recently acquired Q-Marine Data, it is estimated that the cumulative production of oil and gas from BHE and BH-35 is 0.422 million metric tonnes and 0.529 billion cubic metres, respectively, over a period of eight years, with peak production rates of 2500 barrels per day of oil and 2,50,000 cubic metres of gas.

The release said that, after studying various options, ONGC decided on suitably locating a well platform with minimum facilities between BHE and BH-35 fields and drilling directional wells to produce oil and gas from the two fields and evacuate the oil and gas to the SH Complex which is located only 10 kms from BHE.

Various optimisation studies, coupled with improved price realisation for oil as well as gas, have ensured a healthy IRR of 1.4: 5.4 for the project, the release added.

NNN