British Gas to up India investment
By Our Corporate Bureau | 12 Sep 2006
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The Panna-Mukta-Tapti oil and gas fields off Mumbai's coast are vital to British Gas India, which operates them with RIL and ONGC. BG India will invest more than $900 million in them, reports CNBC-TV18.British Gas India has big plans for the Panna-Mukta-Tapti oil and gas fields. In 2002 it bought 30 per cent from Enron in the fields for $350 million. Today they are a significant part of its Indian operations.
Kapil Garg, managing director, British Gas Exploration and Production, India, says, "When we took over this field from Enron, the production was about 20,000-22,000 barrels per day. Today we produce about 40,000 bpd."
Gas output is also up, from 250 to 400 million cubic feet a day. That's 8 per cent of India's hydrocarbon production. By 2008, BG plans to raise oil production to 50,000 barrels a day and gas production to 600 million cubic feet. It hopes to maintain this level until its concession agreement ends in 2019. That means more investment.
Garg says, "BG has invested over $900 million till date and this is expected to double in the coming years."
The Panna field has in place oil reserves of 1.1 billion barrels and 3.6 trillion cubic feet of gas. The company hopes to recover 300 million barrels of oil and 2.2 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Though BG is now trying hard to diversify, it is expected that this field will continue to play a pivotal role for at least the next three to five years.
