By an OGJ correspondent
MUMBAI, Feb. 17 -- India's government-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) found new oil and gas reserves west of its gigantic Vasai gas field off the Mumbai coast.
"Two wells drilled west of the Vasai gas field showed the presence of several hydrocarbon-bearing zones that are estimated to hold around 48 million tonnes of oil and oil-equivalent gas," an ONGC source reported. "This is additional to the 97 million tonnes of oil discovered earlier in East Vasai, in the same region."
Petroleum minister Ram Naik, however, was more conservative about the size of the discovery. "I am happy about the find, but there are some procedural arrangements which have to be completed before any official estimate of the find can be officially announced," he said. "We are currently going through the process of certification, in which official agencies will estimate the size of the find. Only then would we bein a position to make an announcement."
Senior ONGC officials said the find seemed to be "medium large," but that exact details are not yet available. Oil analyst Karthik Ramakrishnan, of Sunidhi Consultancy, said the find meant that India's demand-supply gap in gas would go down.
"It is important to know the recoverable amount of oil and gas in the field, as the country currently has a deficit of 70 million cu m/day (MMscmd) of gas," he said. India produces 69-70 MMscmd of gas, while the demand is around 140 MMscmd.
The Reliance find of 40 MMscmd in five fields in the Krishna-Godavari basin last October would not be sufficient to meet the rising demand, which is expected to total 230-235 MMscmd in 5 years.
Production from ONGC's Vasai field, currently at 32 MMscmd of gas, will decline from next year by as much as 3 MMscmd.
East Vasai holds close to 3.5 tcf of gas reserves, and a quantity of crude oil. Estimated production from the field would be 700,000 tonnes/year of oil and 3.4 MMscmd of gas.
"We are hoping to integrate new finds with the producing Vasai field for an integrated complex," said the ONGC source. "We will lay a submarine pipeline grid of 8-10 km to bring gas from the east and west to the existing Vasai platform for processing and further transportation to our Uran gas plant, for sale to customers."