ONGC drilled 503 wells at a cost of approx Rs 14,200 crore which is 11.5% lower than the budget outlay. The initiatives taken by the company to optimize cost and enhance operational efficiencies has yielded additional savings in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018″
By Niwedita Gupta
Government-owned oil and natural gas major Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has set an ambitious target to drill 535 wells this fiscal to boost oil and gas production.
Twenty four out of these will be deep-water development wells as part of Cluster-2 development of KG-DWN-98/2 project, off the East-Coast of India. The company is also set to drill 30 wells as part of its CBM development project.
ONGC has set a capex outlay of Rs 17,615 crore on drilling activities this fiscal. There is a significant upside in the number of deepwater
development wells planned by the company.
In FY 2017-18, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) drilled 503 wells, which is the highest number of wells drilled in last 27 years.
Among the 503 wells, 119 exploratory and 384 development wells were drilled. During FY’18, ONGC’s planned capex outlay on drilling activities was Rs 16,038 crore with a target to drill 496 wells including 110 exploratory and 386 development wells.
This is the second consecutive year that ONGC has drilled over 500 wells. Last year, the company drilled 501 wells at a cost of Rs 15,440 crore. This comes at a time when the company is looking to step up domestic output to reduce 10 percent import dependence by 2022.
What’s more remarkable is that among the 119 exploratory wells drilled, 8 were in the deep-water fields against initial target of 6 and 45 in shallow-water fields against target of 38.
In order to have a more focused approach in drilling operations, a new concept ‘Company within Company’ was rolled out in Mumbai High (MH) Asset to bring about operational efficiency in offshore drilling operations. “The plan has already paid rich dividends as MH Asset achieved highest-ever cycle and commercial speeds”, Mr Shanker says.
