ONGC's Director of Explorations Sushma Rawat speaks on company's exploration outlook, oil and gas production targets and monetisation pipeline.
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00:00 We have with us the Director of Exploration at ONGC. Today was their AGM. We have Mrs. Sushma Rawat with us.
00:08 Thank you so much for joining us, ma'am.
00:10 My first question would be on the KG Basin development. What is the production outlook for that?
00:16 What is the expected timeline that ONGC is looking at?
00:19 See, ONGC, as you would have heard the Director of Production ONGC say,
00:23 we would be coming up with the first oil in the mid of October this year.
00:29 And that is, details of it you can get from Director of Production himself.
00:35 Because we have been, I mean the whole of ONGC, we have been trying to monetize it and bring the first oil as fast as possible.
00:43 There have been certain hiccups, I would say, but definitely it is online.
00:49 I can talk more about the exploration aspect in the offshore of KG, because we've been working really hard.
00:56 At present, we have around 6-7 shallow water locations, which are around 98 bar 2,
01:04 in the vicinity of Rawa and Chandrika acreages of ONGC and JV.
01:10 So these we'd be looking into. And also we are trying to bring an upside potential to the 98 bar 2 blocks, both cluster 2 as well as 3.
01:19 So we believe there is a huge potential in the deeper end. This is the easy fruit, you know,
01:24 which can bring in more upside into the 98 bar 2 project itself.
01:29 Very important points there. Ma'am, another question on the exploration activities in general that ONGC will be looking out for FY24 and ahead.
01:40 So in terms of the acreages, and you would have heard quite often that, you know, our target at the end of 25-26,
01:47 is 5 lakh square kilometer of total acreage availability for ONGC.
01:53 Currently, we are around 1,67,000. With OLP8, we'd be nearing somewhere around 2 lakh square kilometers.
02:04 And we are awaiting the OLP9 offshore round, wherein the acreages or the areas would be coming in more.
02:12 So we at present are currently almost doing 19 of the 26 sedimentary basins, both category 2 as well as category 3.
02:22 We have acquired a lot of data. We have within OLP around 43 blocks in OLP.
02:28 So we have our committed work programs of 2D, 3D seismic as well as well drilling.
02:34 So on land as well as offshore, both in the northeast, then we have in Narmada, Kadapa, then Ganga Valley, and also in the Bombay.
02:45 As you already know, we have had, you know, successes or discoveries within the OLP block.
02:50 Other than that, since January, I mean, we've had six small to medium discoveries, and we are hoping to target more offshore in Andamans.
03:01 Again, we are we have completed the phase of acquisition of data.
03:05 So processing and interpretation. And I think mid of next year, we'll be into drilling of deep water locations, at least two of them in Andaman.
03:15 Currently, we are drilling in Mahanadi, as you know, two locations we have lined up for exploration.
03:20 One has been spotted. The other is going to be spotted. Kaveri offshore also in the deep water, around 2400 meters plus of bathymetry.
03:28 We'll be drilling three locations. So it's quite an intensive program which we are looking at.
03:33 And we are trying to also come up with sort of more increased drilling of locations, which would be coming up to 140 to 150.
03:43 Currently, we do around 100 exploratory wells. So that pace we are going to increase.
03:49 Right. Very, very interesting points there, ma'am. Lastly, one question on the oil and gas production in general at ONGC.
03:58 It has been on the decline. I think for this FY year on year, it has gone down.
04:04 Definitely ONGC has been able to arrest that. Do you think you can reverse this trend going ahead?
04:11 I'm looking forward to monetization of the already discovered fields. We have a huge kitty of around 200 mmT in place.
04:20 Of which even if I do a ballpark recovery of around 20 percent, it is going to be quite a big volume.
04:27 On the production side, the teams are working very hard to bring various projects, as you already heard.
04:35 So that monetization and the production starts earlier. For exploration, because we also look into the development aspect of it in terms of the subsurface GNG.
04:47 So what we contribute is in the area of secondary and tertiary recoveries as well.
04:55 So enhanced oil recovery, we do a lot of geocellular models in which we can simulate different kinds of schemes as to take out more and more oil.
05:06 They can be low sal water injection or gas injection schemes.
05:13 So that exploration does. And we also come up with a lot of near field exploration, which we call the delineation drilling.
05:24 So in which the entire field growth takes place like that.
05:30 What we establish after drilling a couple of initial exploratory wells, the volume like for Bombay High, I mean, I've repeated this quite often.
05:39 Bombay High initially we estimated around in the 1980s around 530 mmT.
05:45 Currently it is 2300 mmT oil field. So it's grown over the years.
05:50 So that is how we bring in more into production through exploration.
05:54 [MUSIC]