India's ONGC to Ramp up KG Basin Gas Output
Indian state-run explorer ONGC plans to ramp up gas output from its KG basin project off India's east coast from May onwards, its head of finance Subhash Kumar said on February 15 during a conference call.
“The production from KG-98/2 Cluster 2 already started. It's relatively insignificant production today at around 320,000 m3/day. But from May onwards, we believe that it will ramp up,” he said.
ONGC will increase output to about 3-3.5mn m3/day from May, which will further increase to 8.5mn m3/day in 2022-2023 before hitting a peak rate in 2024 of about 15mn m3/day, Kumar said.
“As far as the peaking date is concerned, that's what I would be very cautious about committing today for the reasons we discussed earlier,” Kumar said.” But it will happen in 2023 or 24. That's likely scenario.”
Reliance Industries (RIL) and UK major BP recently started production from R Cluster, an ultra-deep-water gas field in block KG D6. RIL and BP are developing three deepwater gas projects at KG D6 – R Cluster, Satellites Cluster and MJ.
Meanwhile, ONGC has announced plans to form a subsidiary to focus on the gas and LNG business. The company is being formed with the objective of sourcing, marketing and trading of natural gas, LNG business, hydrogen-enriched CNG (HCNG), gas to power business, bioenergy/bio-gas/biomethane/other biofuels business.
The company has also decided to buy a 5% stake in the Indian Gas Exchange, which was launched last year. ONGC on February 14 reported a standalone net profit in the three months ending December 31 of rupees 13.78bn ($190mn), down 67.4% year/year.