Major discovery of oil and Gas off Krishna Godavari offshore

The state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) achievement in producing first oil from its Krishna-Godavari deepwater block with estimated peak production of 45,000 barrels of oil per day is a “remarkable step in India’s energy journey”  This is the first major discovery of oil since this government came to power in 2014

Announcing the development, ONGC said: “With commencement of this First Oil on 7 January 2024, ONGC is nearing completion of Phase 2, culminating into commencement of oil production from the ‘M’ field of KG-DWN-98/2

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First oil production has commenced from the “complex and difficult” deepwater KG-DWN-98/2 block, situated off the coast of Bay of Bengal. Besides oil output, over 10 million cubic meters of gas per day is expected from the block. “This project is expected to add 7 per cent to current national oil production and 7 per cent to national natural gas production,”

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“This 98/2 project is likely to increase ONGC’s total Oil and Gas production by 11 per cent and 15 per cent respectively,” the public sector explorer said in a statement. “Valiantly combating various technological and Covid-related challenges, ONGC had successfully executed Phase 1 of the project in March 2020, achieving the commencement of gas production from U field of the KG-DWN-98/2 Block in record time of 10 months,” it added.

The development of this field faced unique technical challenges due to the waxy nature of the crude. To overcome those, it employed the innovative ‘Pipe in Pipe’ technology, a first-of-its-kind initiative in India. “While some sub-sea hardware involved in this development has been sourced internationally to meet specific requirements, the majority of fabrication works were carried out at modular fabrication facility at Kattupalli near Chennai .

The flagship project is on track with the final phase of the project with the balance oil and gas fields of the block scheduled to be put on production by mid- 2024, it said. “Peak production of field is expected to be 45,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) and over 10 MMSCMD [million metric standard cubic meters per day] of gas,” it said.