New Delhi: State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has approved a $ 560 million project for enhancing oil recovery at the prolific Rajasthan oilfields.
“Our board earlier this week approved the Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) project for Rajasthan fields,” ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Sudhir Vasudeva said here.
Cairn India, which owns 70 per cent of the fields, had in June last year submitted a draft EOR plan for the Mangala oilfield, the largest among the 26 oil and gas find it has made in the Barmer district block.
ONGC, which holds the remaining 30 per cent interest in the block, did extensive studies before approving of the EOR investment plan.
Vasudeva said the investment will be about $ 560 million which will be shared between Cairn and ONGC in 70:30 ratio. The funds are for drilling additional wells and other works, he said.
After ONGC approval, the proposal will now go to the block oversight panel, called the Management Committee headed by oil regulator DGH.
Cairn-ONGC joint venture will this fiscal drill 48 infill wells.
These wells at a later stage will also be used for EOR which may include chemical intervention to sustain the plateau rates for longer times.
Cairn, which currently produces over 175,000 barrels per day of oil from Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwariya fields in the Rajasthan block, is targeting 215,000 bpd output by the turn of next fiscal.
It has planned a capex of about $ 2.5 billion in next three years between financial years 2013-14 and 2015-16.
The oil major also has plans to ramp up production from the Bhagyam field of the Barmer block during the second half of current fiscal.
Besides, it is also looking at producing oil from two smaller fields at the Barmer hills during the current fiscal, sources said.
The company has plans to drill 100 new oil wells to monetise new reserves at the Rajasthan block, whose resource potential is 7.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
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