ONGC looks to set up own power plants

Plans gas-based as well as non-conventional power generation facilities Rajahmundry: PSU giant Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) on Thursday announced its intention to set up own power plants. ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Sudhir Vasudeva had made it clear that ONGC would not only set up gas-based power plants, but also those based on non-conventional energy sources including wind and nuclear energy. He however did not elaborate further on these plans. He said ONGC would invest Rs 10 lakh crore by 2030 as a part of its efforts to double the production from current 60 million tonnes to 130 million tonnes. The ONGC group will invest Rs 2.65 lakh crore during the 12th five year plan. Vasudeva made this announcements after inaugurating the monetization and production operations from the first onshore marginal gas fields in the KG basin operated by KEI-RSOS Petroleum & Energy Limited (KRPEL) under public private partnership (PPP) near here. He further said ONGC's focus had been on fields with large gas potential, but the recent increase in the gas price made it to relook at the marginal fields through the PPP mode. "This project is a good example of PPP model and the second monetisation of a marginal gas field, the first one was from another difficult area � Jaisalmer. We see tremendous potential in this project with an expectation of three lakh cubic metres of gas, as there are five more wells to be drilled. Rajahmundry asset has been one of our best assets and hope to see it go from strength to strength," he explained. The three marginal fields, located at Sirikattapalli, Mulikipalli and Magatapalli, are expected to produce nearly 65,000 cubic meters of gas per day in the first phase. ONGC and KRPEL, which is owned by KEI group and RSOS group, will share the production equally (50 per cent each). This was a risk and reward contract award through international competitive bidding. Under the terms of the contract, KRPEL designated as servicing partner, would bring in all the investments and expertise to rejuvenate the depleted field. It absorbs all the risks, but shares rewards with the PSU giant. "KRPEL has carried out workovers in these 3 depleted fields, used better gas recovery techniques, laid 15 km of cross country pipe lines connecting all the fields and built a state of the art gas gathering station capable of processing 5 lakh cubic metres of gas per day at Ponnamanda village in KG asset," said Lieutenant Murthy Jasti, Managing Director, KRPEL In addition, KRPEL has carried out extensive three dimensional seismic data acquisition programme in all the five fields allotted to it and will shortly commence drilling five new appraisal wells in these fields spread over a span of over 37 sq km in KG basin. KRPEL is estimating recoverable reserves of 1.2 billion cubic metres and subsequent to the drilling campaign, expects to achieve a plateau production of 3 to 4 lakh cubic meters of gas per day. Nearly, 18 depleted fields had been awarded by ONGC Ltd all over India till date and these are the first 3 fields to be monetized and commence gas production.