(From left) GAIL chief U. D. Choubey, Total senior vice-president Thierry Pelimlin, Oil India chairman M.R. Pasrija and HPCL chairman Arun Balakrishnan in New Delhi on Thursday. (PTI)

New Delhi, Oct. 18: It was a day of big-ticket moves in oil & gas. While ONGC announced a $5-billion investment plan, HPCL, GAIL India, L.N. Mittal and France’s Total signed an agreement to set up a refinery-cum-petrochemical complex in Visakhapatnam.

The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) today said it would invest over $5 billion to produce 25 million standard cubic metres per day (mscmd) of gas from its offshore fields in the Krishna- Godavari basin.

ONGC has submitted an estimate of its discoveries in the region — put at 6.37 trillion cubic feet (tcf) — and the investment plan to the upstream regulator, the directorate general of hydrocarbons.

There are also plans to produce 8,000 barrels of oil a day from the fields. In its submission to the regulator, the PSU has not referred to the deep-water discoveries in the DWN-98/2 block in the region that is adjacent to Reliance Industries’ gas block KG-D6. Reserve from the deep-water find is estimated at 2-14 tcf.

For the Vizag refinery, the agreement between HPCL, Mittal, Total and GAIL is for a feasibility study for the complex. Oil India will also take a part in the project.

The refinery will be have an annual capacity of 15 million tonnes, while the unit will produce one million tonne of olemics and aromatics. Total will take the lead in conducting the feasibility study for the refinery project and GAIL for the petrochemical unit.