Indian firm plans drilling in two offshore wells from Oct 2021

Indian ONGC Videsh Ltd has planned to drill two exploratory wells in two separate offshore blocks in the next drilling season starting from October 2021.

It is preparing to drill the wells - Titly in shallow sea block SS-04 and Moitree in block SS-04 areas, a senior energy ministry official said on Wednesday.

He said the Indian oil-gas exploration firm has already completed a portion of geo-hazard survey on the blocks.

The tender will be floated soon to select subcontractors for carrying out the drilling job, the official added.

Drilling these wells along with Kanchan is mandatory for the firm within its contract period by February 2023.

The ONGC had a plan to initiate drilling an exploratory well at Kanchan in block SS-04 last year.

But the onslaught of the deadly coronavirus pandemic and a row over advance income tax or AIT, demurrage charges to port delayed its previous drilling plan.

Sources said the ONGC has now planned to drill the wells buoyed by the findings of two dimensional (2D) seismic surveys.

Currently, no exploration is being carried out in offshore blocks inside the country's territorial areas in the Bay of Bengal.

No offshore well produces gas in Bangladesh and the entire natural gas output comes from its onshore fields and also from import of liquefied natural gas or LNG.

Any fresh discovery of hydrocarbon in an offshore field will boost the country's future oil and gas reserves.

State-run Petrobangla earlier extended the tenure of the contract with the ONGC by two more years until February 2023 to boost offshore exploration.

The deal with the Indian firm was set to expire in February 2021 after an initial two-year's extension.

Petrobangla signed two production-sharing contracts or PSCs with the ONGC, the operator of blocks SS-04 and SS-09, on February 17 in 2014, which was set to expire in February 2019.

The ONGC holds participating interest of 45 per cent, Oil India Limited 45 per cent and the Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited or BAPEX 10 per cent.

Block SS-04 covers an area of 7,269 square kilometres while Block SS-09 stretches 7,026 sq km. Water depth of both the blocks ranges between 20 and 200 metres.

The ONGC is committed to doing 2,700 line-kilometre 2D seismic data acquisition and processing and one exploratory well in block SS-04 and 2,700 line-kilometre 2D seismic data acquisition and processing and two exploratory wells in block SS-09.

It will operate and sell oil and gas for 20 years from an oil field and 25 years from a gas field.

The ONGC has already completed an estimated 3,100 line-kilometre 2D seismic surveys for both the blocks.