State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) today said it is very close to capping a Krishna Godavari basin well that has been leaking natural gas for two months now.
An uncontrolled flow of gas started from Well G-1-9 in the Bay of Bengal around August 30.
“We have been successful in finding a solution to shut the gas flow,” ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Sudhir Vasudeva said. “We are about to cap the well.”
The well, he said, would be sealed in a “matter of days”.
The G-1-well was drilled about a decade back and had not been put in production till now. It suddenly started leaking gas towards the month-end.
ONGC is currently developing the KG basin G-1 field along with the neighbouring GS-15. Both the fields are marginal or small finds. The G-1-9 well was part of this development through which ONGC had planned to produce 2.7 million standard cubic meters of gas and 9,400 barrels of associated oil daily.
Through this, it is targeting to produce 0.982 million tonnes of oil and 5.92 billion cubic meters of gas by 2020-21.
The project at the time of conception in 2003 was to cost Rs 429.82 crore, but the cost was subsequently revised to Rs 1,262.93 crore in 2004 and then to Rs 2,218.01 crore in 2010.
The company had planned to begin production from the fields by April-May, a source said, adding that drilling on the GS-15 field was completed last August.
The project had time and cost overruns as the contractor (Clough Ltd of Australia) defaulted in its work. ONGC terminated the contract in June 2006.
Of the two, G1 is a deepwater field and is located 20 km from the shore. GS15 is a shallow water field. G1 was the first deepwater field to be developed by ONGC.