ONGC uses new technique to find more gas in Assam, Tripura

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SME Times News Bureau | 15 Jun, 2015
The state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has undertaken the latest multi-stage hydro-fracturing method to find more gas in Assam and Tripura, a top official said Agartala on Sunday.

"The ONGC had undertaken the hydro-fracturing method in Assam earlier this year to explore more natural gas. A similar system has been carried out in Tripura now," ONGC's executive director V.P. Mahawar told reporters.

He said: "The ONGC has undertaken hydro-fracturing in Khubal gas field areas (in northern Tripura) to assess actual reserves of the field and in Baramura (in western Tripura) to enhance production from tight sands."

The official said that to operate the hydro-fracturing system, experts, machines and chemicals were gathered from Ahmedabad, Karaikal, Rajamundry, Bokaro and Assam.

The ONGC, which has found huge gas reserves in various gas-bearing fields in Tripura over the years, established its first gas reserve in the mountainous Baramura areas in 1974.

"To arrest the declining production of the ageing Baramura gas field and to enhance productivity from tight reservoir sands of this area, it was decided to undertake hydro-fracturing," the ONGC executive director said.

Mahawar, who is also the officer-on-special duty (onshore), said that to conduct more hydro-fracturing operations in other gas bearing fields of Tripura, a permanent Well Stimulation Service (WLL) unit would be set up in Tripura.

According to him, ONGC has so far drilled 190 wells in Tripura and more than 50 percent wells are gas-bearing.

"At present, our capacity to produce gas is 4.43 million standard cubic metres per day (MSCMD) and it would increase to 5.10 MSCMD in two years," he added.

ONGC has also commissioned its first mega commercial power project in outhern Tripura by floating a company -- ONGC Tripura Power Company (OTPC).

The Rs.10,000 crore 726 MW capacity gas-based thermal power project (using both water and natural gas) at Palatana, 60 km from here, is ONGC's first commercial power project in India.

ONGC, in association with Rajasthan-based Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals Limited and the Tripura government, would also set up a Rs.5,000 crore fertiliser plant in northern Tripura.

"The process is on to set up the fertiliser project," said Mahawar, who was accompanied by senior ONGC officials.

The journalists were taken to the Baramura gas field to showcase to the media persons the complicated method of gas exploration.

The ONGC would soon deploy a Chinese-made rig as well to intensify its gas exploration activities in Tripura.