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 INDIA
South Asia
Apart from onshore extensions of offshore basins,
especially in Rajastan where Cairn discovered significant oil fields in
2003 and 2004, the only significant area of onshore oil production is
the Assam-Arakan basin in the extreme NE. This area has been intensively
explored by Indian companies.
 Upstream
activity is dominated by the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) but
is controlled by the government. It created a New Exploration Licensing
Policy (NELP) in 1998, permitting foreign involvement. In mid 2000, 22
block awards were made, including a number of deepwater areas, of which
8 were with ONGC and 12 were with the Indian conglomerate, Reliance
Industries.
NELP II was held in 2001, NELP III in 2003, and NELP IV
was completed in February 2004, all dominated by ONGC and Reliance.
Although there have been the Rajastan onshore finds the Indian
government is depending on deep waters to arrest decline and ONGC began
its deepwater drilling campaign at the end of 2003 off India’s northwest
coast with turbidites being the main target.
Offshore: The offshore Indian sub-continent runs
from the Pakistan border to Mumbai (formerly Bombay), along the Malabar
coast to Sri Lanka, up the Coromandel coast and into the Bay of Bengal
to the Bangladeshi border. India has seven geologically defined offshore
regions but only three produce oil and gas.
 The Cambay/Mumbai basin runs from the Gulf of Cambay
offshore of Gujarat in the north to Goa in the south on the west side of
India. It is the main producing area in India containing the giant
Mumbai High field, discovered in 1974, 200 kms from the coast and
operated by ONGC. The field is geologically unique, located on a
regional high.
It came onstream in 1976 gradually increasing to over
400,000 Bbls per day by 1985. Production from the field fell to 195,000
Bbls per day in 2001 but has since increased. Gas production began in
1978 through a pipeline to Uran, south of Mumbai.
Other smaller fields also produce in the area. Production
from the Ratna field, 120 kms southeast of Mumbai High, commenced in
1982, from the Heera field, 100 kms southeast, in 1984 and from the
Panna field, 50 kms west, in 1986. The South Bassein gas field, near to
Panna was brought onstream in 1988 tied in to the pipeline sending
associated gas produced from Mumbai High to Uran.
Around 1,400 wells have been drilled in this region. A
redevelopment programme for Mumbai High was begun in 2001 and ONGC
continues to invest considerable sums to upgrade the field and bring
onstream new projects.
Inshore of the Mumbai High field a number of joint
venture development projects are also in operation. In February 2002, BG
purchased a 30% stake in the Mukta, Panna, and Tapti offshore oil and
gas fields, which had previously been held by Enron. The Mid Tapti and
South Tapti gas complex in the Cambay basin in the north came onstream
in 1997 from three wellhead platforms.
The Mukta and Panna oil fields are also being
redeveloped. Production in the Ratna field ceased in 1992 and contracts
to redevelop this are in progress. ONGC also plans to offer 19 marginal
oil and gas fields, discovered over the last 25 years, for development.
In the Cambay area (CB-OS-2 block) the Lakshmi gas field, operated by
Cairn, with estimated reserves of 8 Bcm, commenced production to the
Suvali processing plant in 2002. The satellite Gauri oil and gas field
came on stream in 2004 and other discoveries including Ambe (oil and
gas) and Parvati (oil) arel also being brought onstream in this area.
The Cauvery basin underlies the southeastern coast of
India and the northeastern coast of Sri Lanka. Its northern edge
coincides with the town of Chennai (formerly Madras). It is a passive
margin rift basin and has several small oil discoveries in India both
offshore and onshore, the first of which began producing onshore in
1986.
In 1982 the PH-9 offshore field and in 1988 the PY-1 and
PY-3 offshore fields were discovered by ONGC 80 kms offshore from
Pondicherry. Hardy Oil (which was taken over by British Borneo, and
subsequently by ENI) licensed the PY area in 1994 and installed an FPSO
on the 27 mm Bbl PY-3 field in 1997. In 2003 the field was producing
3,800 Bbls per day and was declining rapidly but in 2004 this briefly
increased after water injection was begun and a well was re-drilled.
The Krishna-Godavari basin in Andhra Pradesh, north of
Chennai, is a passive margin rift basin overlain by deltaic sediments
and turbidites emanating from the Krishna and Godavari Rivers. This
basin is the site of the only other significant offshore production in
India and many undeveloped oil and gas discoveries also exist.
ONGC began production from the largest of the oil
discoveries, Ravva, in 1993. Command Petroleum (taken over by Cairn
Energy in 1996) was contracted to expand the field facilities and the
field produces at around 53,000 Bbls per day at plateau plus 0.7 Bcm of
gas per year. Infill development wells are planned to maintain output
plus further exploration drilling.
Exploration efforts in deep water acreage have resulted
in a number of gas discoveries. In 2002 Reliance Industries and Cairn
(since sold to ONGC) announced a series of mostly deep water gas finds
with reserves claimed to range from 200 to 420 Bcm including the largest
field, Dhirubhai in the KG-DWN-98/3 (D6) block.
The Kutch basin along the west coast of Gujarat state
next to the Pakistani border underlies the eastern edge of the Indus
fan. Around 15 wells were drilled in the 1970s and early 80s with no
success although some gas was recovered in a nearshore well.
Three deep water drilling rigs working for ONGC all along
the west coast of India, north of Goa have also failed to encounter
hydrocarbons in a number of wells. The coastline from Goa southwards
(south of Mumbai), to the tip of India comprises the Kerala basin. The
area has seen very little drilling although a deepwater well was drilled
here in 2004. It would seem that the Kerala passive margin basin,
contiguous with basins in East Africa, has unfavourable geology for the
generation of oil and gas.
On the east coast in the north (north of
Krishna-Godavari) the Mahanadi and West Bengal basins lie west of
Calcutta, offshore Orissa. These are passive margin rift basins, similar
to Krishna-Godavari, overlain by young deltaics. Up to 2002, at least 60
shallow water wells had been drilled with no success and there appeared
to be a lack of structural traps but Reliance made 3 gas discoveries 80
kms offshore in 64-84 m of water in the Bay of Bengal on its
NEC-OSN-97/2 (NEC-25) block, estimating a range of 35 to 100 Bcm to be
present. There are plans to develop these fields and further deep water
wells are scheduled by ONGC in the Mahanadi basin.
Finally, India has ownership of a large area of water
around the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the eastern Indian Ocean. In
the 1970s ONGC drilled the AN-1-1 well and flowed some gas from
sediments deposited at the leading edge of the Bengal fan but eleven
further wells failed to find any hydrocarbons.
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