West Bengal gets incorporated in ONGC’s oil and gas map with its eighth field at Ashoknagar in West Bengal beginning industrial production on Sunday. ONGC very first extracted 20 kilolitres of crude oil from the Ashoknagar oilfields early November this year and had sent it to Indian Oil’s Haldia refinery for processing.
Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Oil & organic gas and steel minister, flagging off the industrial production via switching on sucker road pump, stated: “ONGC so far has invested rS 3,361 crore for exploration of hydrocarbon in the Bengal basin to find oil and gas reserves. Another Rs 425 crore would be spent on exploration in the Bengal basin spread over 1.22 lakh km, two-third of which falls under the Bay of Bengal waters.”
ONGC will dig 13 wells in the coming 3 years in the newly awarded acreages below the open acreage licensing policy. It has began fresh geoscientific activities comprised of appraisal programme, Pradhan stated. The final round of bidding was completed in January 2020.
The appraisal programme of Ashoknagar discovery for an region of about 739 sq km would contain 3D seismic, low frequency passive seismic survey and drilling wells in addition to acquiring 1300 LKM (line kilometre) of 2D and 2900 SKM (square kilometre) of 3D. Pradhan stated India was at present generating 83% of its oil and gas reserves of which ONGC accounts for 72% of the country’s hydrocarbon production.
An ONGC official told FE that the Ashoknagar oil fields will also create gas to the extent of 1 lakh cubic meters a day and oil involving 15-18 cubic meters (1 cubic meter equals to 1,000 litres) a day.
In Ashoknagar gas was very first discovered below 2,300 meters from the surface following came oil. ONGC and Oil India had been awarded the block in Bengal basin below the Mahanadi-Bengal- Andaman division, way back in 2009. The very first phase of exploration got more than in 2014. The massive reserves of oil and gas had been discovered in the second phase with industrial exploitability confirmed on August 20, 2018.
For 60 years ONGC has been attempting to get oil and gas reserves in West Bengal digging 150 wells in the procedure. But it is very first discovery occurred in Ashoknagar on 3.5 acres.
ONGC plans to dig one hundred wells and for that would demand 300-350 acres, the official stated ONGC has currently issued a license to the Ashoknagar oilfields for promoting their crude and gas, the official stated.