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ONGC mulls feasibility study for using RIL’s infra for gas output

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is likely to hire Norway's Aker Solutions to study feasibility of using Reliance Industries' unutilised production facilities off the Andhra coast for producing gas from its discoveries in the region.ONGC wants to see if RIL's KG-D6 gas field gathering and processing facilities in the Bay of Bengal can be used for producing gas from its G-4 discovery in the Krishna Godavari basin, top company officials said.

G-4 gas field lies about 10-km away from RIL's facilities in the offshore. Aker Solutions is likely to be hired to see the economic and technical feasibility of laying a pipeline to take the gas from G-4 field to RIL's offshore gas gathering and then to its landfall facilities at Gadimoga near Kakinada.

ONGC had in July signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with RIL to explore the possibility of sharing Mukesh Ambani-run firm's infrastructural facility in the East Coast.

Officials said before hiring Aker, ONGC is referring the issue to CVC as the Norwegian firm is also likely to be a bidder for G-4 field development contracts.Once CVC clears, Aker will be hired.

If successful, the same concept will be explored for the nine gas discoveries in ONGC's KG block KG-DWN-98/2, which sits next to RIL's flagging KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block.

ONGC, they said, wants to develop G-4 together with the finds in the northern part of its KG-DWN-98/2 block by 2017. Instead of putting separate gas processing and transportation facilities, ONGC is looking to hire RIL's under-utilised gas gathering station at KG-D6 fields along with pipelines that take the fuel to onland as also its processing plant at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh.

RIL has pipeline and other facilities capable of handling gas output of 80 million standard cubic meters per day. KG-D6 output has dipped to below 14 mmscmd from 69 mmscmd achieved in March 2010 and the company indicated it may never touch 80 mmscmd due to unexpected geological complexities.

ONGC aims to cut capital expenditure and also expedite field development by using RIL's infrastructure. The infrastructure sharing would help in early monetisation of its deep water fields adjacent to the fields of RIL, they said.

It plans to produce about 6-9 mmscmd of gas from G-4 and D & E fields in KG-DWN-98/2 block in the first phase. ONGC has found 4.85 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in nine gas discoveries it has made in the Krishna-Godavari basin block KG-DWN-98/2. The block is targeted for production by 2016-17 and a peak production of 22 mmscmd is envisaged.

Gas from these is proposed to be produced by combining them with a gas discovery in the adjacent block.The Northern Discovery Area (NDA) consists of the Padmawati, Kanakadurga, Annapurna, D/KT, U, A, W and E gas finds in water depths ranging from 594 metres to 1,283 m. The Southern Discovery Area consisting of the UD-1 discovery falls in ultra-deepwater with a depth of 2,841 m.
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