NEW DELHI: Undeterred by the controversy with the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) over the issue of gas find off Andhra Pradesh coast, State-run utility Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is busy holding talks with some leading multinational oil companies and international service providers for technical assistance to develop the gas and oil reserve finds and fields in the Krishna-Godavari basin off the Andhra Pradesh coast, considered among one of the biggest gas reserves in the country.

Technical assistance

Highly placed sources in ONGC said talks were already in an advanced stage with Petrobras of Brazil and ENI of Italy for some kind of tie-up. ONGC has a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for technical association in deepwater exploration and production with these two companies. In addition to this, the company was in talks with other multinational oil companies to work out the technical assistance issue, as ONGC does not have the expertise in developing deepwater finds.

Western Geco had already been entrusted with the job of preparing a detailed appraisal plan for the discovered fields and hydrocarbon finds in nomination blocks and the New Exploration Licensing Policy acreages of the KG offshore basin.

Gas reserves

About 17.5 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, a little less than the reserves in India's largest producing gas field off Bassein on the West coast, have been discovered in the Krishna Godavari basin.

The deepwater block KG-DWN-98/2 covers an area of 7,295 sq. km. Since acquiring operatorship of this block, ONGC drilled six exploratory wells there.

The well was scudded on September 19, 2006, and completed in water depth of 2,841 m and terminated at 6,577 m after encountering basement.

"We are not unduly worried about the DGH not accepting the discovery and are going ahead with whatever is required to tap the massive potential of this major find. The matter is now being looked into by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and it is for the Ministry to take a final decision on the issue. "We also do not accept DGH as an oil regulator as it does not have that statutory authority and at best it can only issue guidelines for such issues,'' a senior ONGC official remarked.

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