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Pratim Ranjan Bose

Non-availability of drill ship causes indefinite postponement

Drilling delay

Kolkata , May 9

Misfortune struck ONGC once again at Bengal offshore. This time it has not only impacted the fate of oil hunt in the Sunderbans delta, but also in the Mahanadi basin on the coasts of Orissa.

According to latest reports, the exploratory drilling at the MN-OSN-97/3 shallow water block in the Mahanadi basin, which was scheduled to commence in March this year, was now postponed indefinitely due to non-availability of drill ship.

ONGC sources said that the jack-up drilling rig Transocean Nordic, which was slated to be re-deployed from Bengal offshore to the Mahanadi basin, got one of its legs stuck under the sea bed. All efforts to free the rig had failed for the last two months. The loss is estimated at $74,000 per day only on the hiring charges of the rig alone.

Already subject to criticism from the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) for the slow pace of exploration activities, the loss is more prominent in terms of time over-run, especially in the Mahanadi basin where drilling could not be initiated for more than a year due to non-availability of environmental clearances. The NELP-I block MN-OSN-97/3 is held jointly by ONGC (85 per cent) and GAIL (15 per cent).

"As things stand now, we have no drill ship to carry out exploration at the Mahanadi basin. Even if the same could be arranged, which itself is a difficult proposition, the sea conditions would be extremely unfavourable for carrying out drilling activities during the monsoon between May and September," a company official said.

The drilling at Bengal offshore (WB-OSN-2000/1) is already facing inordinate delay due to recurrence of technical problems. Commenced in March 2005, ONGC could complete drilling and testing the first well, which proved to be dry, six months behind the schedule.

The drilling of the other three wells could not be taken up as the drill ship found the locations identified as unsuitable for carrying out such operations. The NELP-II block WB-OSN-2000/1 is held jointly by ONGC (85 per cent) and IOC (15 per cent).

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