Natural gas exploration at the S1-Vasishta offshore project site of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) Eastern Offshore Asset (EOA) at Odalarevu near Amalapuram has begun as a low-key affair.
Full-fledged exploration will be taken up once the Gas Authority of India (GAIL) lays pipeline from the project site to its grid located at Bodasakurru village. The 13.6-km-long pipeline project is scheduled to be completed by month-end.
The estimated reserves of natural gas at S1-Vasistha are 15.95 billion cubic metres and the site is part of the investment to the tune of ₹40,000 crore put in by ONGC here to explore natural gas of 21.95 Million Metric Standard Cubic Metres per Day and oil of 75,000 barrels per day (BPD).
“The firms that come forward to lay the pipeline from the project site could procure the natural gas directly from the ONGC,” says Arvind J. Morbale, the newly joined Executive Director and Asset Manager of the ONGC’s EOA.
S1-Vasistha has the capacity of exploring natural gas to the tune of six million cubic metres per day and the realisation of the project is expected to give a boost to the industrial units in the region.
“With the completion of S1-Vasishta, we have shifted our focus tothe second offshore project 98/2. The idea is to commence natural gas exploration by the end of next year and oil exploration from March 2021,” says Mr. Morbale.