State-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is looking to start producing gas from its deepwater Block KG-DWN-98/2 off the country’s eastern coast by mid-2018, according to India’s Petroleum Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan.

The Indian operator has adopted a cluster approach to develop its numerous finds in the block (also known as KG-D5), which lies adjacent to Reliance Industries’ Block KG-D6 in the Bay of Bengal. First production is pencilled in for 2018-19, he said in a written reply to a question.

The Krishna Godavari basin block is divided into the Northern Discovery Area (NDA) and Southern Discovery Area (SDA). Estimated reserves in NDA are estimated at 121 MMtons of oil-in-place and 78 Bcm of gas-in-place, while in SDA they are put at 80.9 Bcm of gas-in-place.

ONGC wants to develop the discoveries in three clusters – 14.5 MMcm/d of gas for 15 years from Cluster-1, which is comprised of the D & E finds in the NDA of the KG-D5 block, and the G-4 discovery in the neighbouring area.

The second batch – Cluster-2A – is mainly comprised of oil finds also in the northern area. “It is envisaged to drill 14 oil wells and 10 water injectors in this cluster, and is expected to produce approximately 31.5 MMtonnes of oil over 15 years, with a peak production rate of 91,000 b/d of oil,” said Pradhan.

Cluster 2B, which is made up of four gas finds in the NDA, is envisaged to produce a peak production rate of 12.5 MMcm/d, with cumulative production of 32.5 Bcm of gas over a 14-year period.

“Efforts to achieve first gas by mid-2018 and first oil by mid-2019 from the above clusters are ongoing. Parallel execution of a number of project activities are in progress to ensure fast track development of these fields,” he said in the written reply. Pradhan added that an exercise to identify associated risks and appropriate mitigation measures are also being planned.

However ONGC is being more cautious with an ultra-deepwater cluster it also has in the SDA. Cluster-3 is essentially the UD-1 gas discovery. “Considering the water depths (2,400-3,200 m) and the constrained techno-economic solutions, execution of this Cluster-3 is presently not being pursued for development. Scouting for suitable technology/solution for field development is in progress,” he said.

The likely solution is expected to be a relatively simple ultra-deepwater subsea tieback of two or three wells to infrastructure installed in the earlier phases, DI understands.

ONGC and Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) won the respective KG-D5 and KG-D6 blocks in the first round under India’s New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) programme in 2000. RIL began production from an oil discovery in KG-D6 in September 2008, and put a gas find onstream in April 2009.