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ONGC to drill five deep water wells in two years

Our Bureau

MUMBAI, Aug. 15

OIL and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) plans to drill five deep water wells at its existing offshore rigs over the next two years, the first lot of such wells in the offing since the start of the company's restructuring in January.

The corporation plans to drill one deep water well to a depth of more than 1,000 metres in 2002-03 with the drilling of an additional four wells by 2003-04, sources said. This is part of ONGC's plans in deep water oil exploration.

The company has shortlisted two companies -- Transocean Sidco Forest and Frontier -- to hire the deep water rigs required for the purpose.

The cost of hiring these rigs will amount to $50,000 per day.

According to sources, the company, which will be hiring the needed rigs initially, may later enter into joint venture agreements for owning deep water rigs.

ONGC is, currently, the world's second largest company to own rigs, having 75 onshore and 10 offshore rigs operating on the country's western and eastern coasts. Only 70 deep water rigs are currently available worldwide.

Senior ONGC officials said, the company, which had been focussing on onshore wells for 44 years, planned to concentrate on deep water drilling in the future.

``This will include drilling new wells and enhancing the existing ones. We recently upgraded Sagar Vijay by drilling beyond a depth of 900 m,'' a company official said.

ONGC's current total crude oil throughput is 26.03 million tonnes.

It had announced plans to invest Rs 10,000 crore for enhancement of crude recovery in existing fields. The company also plans to double its reserve base to 12 billion tonnes oil equivalent, besides raising the recovery factor to the global norm of 40 per cent or more.

It has bagged 16 blocks of the 23 blocks up in the second round of the New Exploration and Licencing Policy. The 16 blocks include seven onland, eight shallow water and six deep water blocks.

On Tuesday, the ONGC stock closed at Rs 152.80 on the Bombay Stock Exchange against the previous close of Rs 150.30, a gain of Rs 2.50.

Picture: A view of Sagar Samrat, ONGC's first offshore rig, at Mumbai High.

Picture by Paul Noronha