ONGC board clears 950 cr investment proposal

Kolkata, May 18: The Board of Directors of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation(ONGC) has approved the investment proposal of Rs. 950 crore for exploration and development of Coal Bed Methane(CBM) in six blocks in Jharkhand and West Bengal.

With the formal Board approval, ONGC has started the countdown for the first commercial production of CBM gas in the country.

Company sources today said the projected schedule for production was June 2007 with an estimated peak production target of 7.84 lakh cubic metres of gas per day.

Out of the projected expenditure, Rs. 557 crore had been earmarked for the development of early CBM production in Central Parbatpur area of Jharia block.

The sources said an expenditure of Rs. 392 crore had been approved for drilling, completion and testing of 22 pilot wells in Jharia, Bokaro and North Karanpura CBM blocks, with completion schedule of 31 months, from the date of placement of the Letter of Intent.

The Jharia CBM block is located within Jharia coalfield, around 25 km east of Bokaro Steel city. The total area of Jharia block is 84.5 square km out of which the Parbatpur area comprises 18 square km and the area under the present production scheme is six square km.

The sources said ONGC would deploy advanced drilling technology, including Horizontal-Inseam-Multilateral drilling technique for the first time in the country after its success by CBM operators in Australia and USA.

UNI