Mumbai, May 23: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) plans to develop the Bassein field further as its output has declined.

The Bassein field, which was discovered in the seventies, has been producing around 29 million standard cubic metres of gas per day, accounting for a significant portion of the country’s total gas output.

Sources said the ONGC board is likely to consider the plan in its next meeting. Though the investment for the project was not revealed, experts put it at around Rs 3,000 crore.

As a part of the additional development plan, ONGC may install two well platforms, pipelines and surface facilities. The field already has two process platforms.

“We expect this additional development to stop the natural decline of gas production from this field,” ONGC sources added.

The Bassein field, located 80 kilometres from the Mumbai coast in the Arabian Sea, has an initial in-place gas reserve of 27 billion cubic metres. The gas is produced through several wells, which are connected to two offshore process complexes.

These complexes are equipped with various facilities to process and transmit the gas to the Hazira plant. After being processed further, the gas is sent through the HBJ pipeline to different industries, including power and fertiliser plants.

The additional development of the Bassein field, where production is declining by around 3 million standard cubic metres per day, comes on the back of the oil and gas major’s success in its Mumbai High redevelopment plan.

This field, which is a major producer of sweet and light crude, was made operational around three decades ago. Though production from this field started declining in the nineties, ONGC has been successful in reversing this trend through various initiatives.

In February, ONGC had reached a crude production level of 2.70 lakh barrels of oil per day from Mumbai High by adopting new technologies.