India Begins Producing Oil Off The Coast of The Bay of Bengal
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the Petroleum and Natural Gas Corporation of India on the commencement of oil production from its flagship deepwater project in the offshore Krishna-Godavari basin, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
The state-controlled Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) began maiden oil production on January 7 from the deepwater KG-DWN 98/2 field in the Krishna-Godavari river basin off the Bay of Bengal on the Kakinada coast. The field is located approximately 25 kilometers from the coastline. Peak production is expected to be about 45 thousand barrels of oil per day and more than 10 million cubic meters per day of gas.
“The Corporation has commenced maiden oil flow from the deepwater 98/2 Krishna Godavari field as it nears completion of the second phase of the project. Phase 3 leading to peak oil and gas production is already underway and is likely to be completed in June 2024. The project is expected to 98/2 will increase the corporation’s total oil and gas production by 11% and 15%, respectively,” the corporation said in a statement on the X social network.
In 2020, the corporation began work to launch oil production by introducing appropriate technologies at the field. The waxy nature of crude oil created many technical challenges, all of which were solved through innovative pipe-in-pipe technology, a first-of-its-kind innovation in India. Representatives of the company said that the well uncovered 30 meters of productive rock at a depth of 5.3 thousand meters below the seabed, and based on the results of seismic studies, it can be assumed that there is an 80-meter productive layer at a depth of 6.45 thousand meters.
Major projects such as KG-DWN-98/2 are critical to achieving India’s goal of reducing dependence on imported oil and gas to meet its rapidly growing energy needs. India is the third largest consumer of crude oil in the world and depends on imports for more than 85% of its needs. The country is also a major importer of natural gas, with domestic gas production capable of meeting about 50% of demand.
