ONGC power project in Tripura to come up by 2011

Agartala, May 14: Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) has finalised 740 MW thermal power project at Palatana in South Tripura, the company sources said here today.

ONGC Board of Directors had set a target till February 2011 for power production at Paltana.

Talking to newspersons here today, ONGC Chairman cum Managing Director R S Sharma said ONGC has drilled 124 wells in Tripura and four installations was already producing about 1.55 million cubic metre of natural gas and was feed-stocking to local power generation units like Northeast Electric Power Company, State Electricity Corporation Limited, Tripura Natural Gas Company and GAIL.

'' To meet additional three million cubic metre gas requirement for upcoming Palatana project, ONGC Tripura asset will undertake drilling of 47 exploratory and 14 developmental wells for which Rs 2000 crore has already been earmarked,'' Mr Sharma said.

He further informed that ONGC had sanctioned Rs 1800 crore for 225 km Tripura Gas Grid and 548 km flow-lines in phases with critical support through civil construction.

Palatana project, the biggest ever investment of ONGC in the NE region, would set up a 640 km of captive transmission line from Palatana to the power pooling station of National Grid at Bongaigoan in Asom, Mr Sharma underlined.

ONGC had planned to expand exploration work for oil and natural gas in Mizoram, Nagaland and Asom.

'' We have the target to explore 13 million tones cubic metre gas in coming years,'' he added.

UNI