ONGC plans Rs6,000 crore capex to raise gas output

12 May 2009

With output falling from its ageing Mumbai High and other western offshore fields, the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Commission will invest Rs6,000 crore in new and existing fields in this fiscal to raise output. The exploration company is currently developing its eastern offshore Krishna Godavari basin finds, G1 and GS 15.

The company expects natural gas production to almost double to 100 million cubic metres a day in the next seven-eight years as it progressively brings new finds into production, even as it gears up to raise volumes from its undersea blocks.

ONGC expects to produce 60 mcmd of gas this fiscal but estimates that output will fall drastically to one-third by 2020 due to the natural decline from its ageing fields. This will, however, be made up as it brings three new fields into production to raise output to 66 mcmd by 2012-13, company chairman R S Sharma recently told oil ministry officials in a presentation.

Fields in the western offshore would help taper the fall to 30 mcmd by 2020. If discoveries such as UD-1 find in ultra deep waters of the Krishna-Godavari basin, at present under conceptualisation stage, are included, the output will rise to 100 mcmd in 2014-15 and it would be at least 20 per cent more than the output in 2020-21, the presentation said.

Besides, an estimated 200 bcm reserves lie to be realised in Mahanadi deepwater discoveries, 25 bcm in KG shallow waters and 15 bcm in B and C-Series fields. These discoveries could yield between 40 and 50 mcmd, Sharma said.

Gas production from Bassein and its Satellite fields, ONGC's largest fields, is likely to dip to about 14 mcmd in 2011-12 from 27.5 mmcmd in 2007-08. Sharma said the cluster of fields in the Western Offshore would produce a little less than 2 mcmd in 2012-13, while Cluster-7 would produce another 2 mcmd.