The Maharatna PSU Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) recently opened another well on its flagship deep-sea project in the Krishna-Godavari basin in the Bay of Bengal aiming to augment production of crude oil and natural gas. Only recently, ONGC started producing oil, which is converted into fuels like petrol and diesel in refineries, from the KG-DWN-98/2 or KG-D5 block.
“On August 24, 2024, ONGC marked a significant milestone by starting production from its fifth oil well in the Block KG-DWN-98/2 Cluster-2 asset,” said the firm. “Leveraging the floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel, ONGC has begun transporting and sale of associated gas, all the while underscoring its commitment to achieving zero gas flaring,” the PSU further stated.
The block that lies in proximity of the Reliance Industries’ KG-D6 block in the KG basin, has a number of discoveries that have been clubbed into clusters. Located 35 kilometres off the coast of Andhra Pradesh in water depths ranging from 300-3,200 metres, the discoveries in the block are divided into Cluster-1, 2 and 3. Cluster 2 is being put into production first.
At the time of beginning of production in January, ONGC had stated that peak or maximum production from the field is expected to be 45,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) and over 10 million standard cubic meters per day (mmscd) of gas which is used to make fertilisers, generate electricity, turned into CNG for use as fuel in automobiles and piped to household kitchens for cooking.
In an investor call on August 6th, ONGC Director (Finance), Mr. Vivek Tongaonkar stated that the firm was producing 12,000 bopd and 0.4 mmscmd of gas from the eastern offshore block — a production from four wells and one more well was planned to be opened in August.
