Mumbai High revamp

Mumbai, May 13 (PTI): State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd will invest about Rs 9,000 crore over the next three to four years in the Mumbai High offshore field.

“The Phase II redevelopment of Mumbai High is going on. About Rs 9,000 crore will be pumped into it over the next three to four years. It is a long-term programme,” ONGC director (offshore) Sudhir Vasudeva told reporters on the sidelines of a conference here.

The PSU had injected Rs 8,000 crore in the first phase of redeveloping the two-decade- old field.

Vasudeva said that the investments notwithstanding there was no way the output could reach the peak levels of 20 million tonnes per annum reached 20 years ago.

The target is to improve recovery from existing in-place oil and gas reserves to 40 per cent in 30 years. The explorer currently has in-place reserves of 1,659 million tonnes.

In addition to oil, the fields also produce around 12.8 million standard cubic metres of gas per day.

“Plans are already on the drawing board to take the ultimate recovery to 40 per cent,” Vasudeva said. “After the investment of Rs 8,000 crore in Phase I, recovery has improved to 29 per cent of the 1,659 million tonnes of total reserves. After the Phase II investment, the recovery will go up by another 3 per cent.”

An improvement in recovery of reserves implies higher field life and subsequently higher crude and natural gas production.

ONGC will commence gas production from its eastern offshore Krishna Godavari basin fields — G1 and GS 15 — from April next year.

“G1 and GS 15 are both predominantly gas fields. GS 15 will start production from April 2010 and G1 from April 2011,” Vasudeva said.

The ONGC scrip fell 3.44 per cent to close at Rs 852.50 on the BSE today.