The Hindu Business Line : Cairn, ONGC may join hands to develop 2 fields

As per the proposal, which is now under ONGC’s active consideration, hydrocarbon produced from North Tapti would be transported to Cairn’s onshore processing facility.

Pratim Ranjan Bose

Kolkata, Aug. 9 Cairn India and ONGC are considering joint development of the Ambe and North Tapti offshore marginal gas fields.

Ambe is a satellite gas field under the Cairn-operated CB/OS-2 joint venture in Cambay basin.

The field is estimated to have recoverable reserve of 29 billion cubic ft and is surrounded by the North Tapti marginal gas field under ONGC.

The other partners in the Cambay joint venture are ONGC and Tata Petrodyne.

According to sources, the proposal for joint development was forwarded by Cairn.

As per the proposal, which is now under ONGC’s active consideration, hydrocarbon produced from North Tapti would be transported to Cairn’s onshore processing facility.

The tariff regime for the North Tapti gas would include transportation and processing charges for using the Cairn facility.

When contacted, Cairn sources confirmed that the joint development proposal was under active consideration.

“This is a normal practice followed by oil and gas producers to improve the economic viability of such marginal assets,” a Cairn official said.

The company has already sought more time from the Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) for submitting the development plan for Ambe, the official added.

According to the official, Cairn and ONGC have such infrastructure sharing arrangements in place at KG Basin.

ONGC uses the facilities of Cairn-operated Ravva joint venture for processing crude oil produced from a relatively smaller asset.

It may be mentioned that development of Ambe and onshore satellite field CB-X were expected to play an important role in arresting the declining production trend of CB/OS-2.

While CB-X was recently brought into production, Cairn has lined up a four infill well drilling programme beginning September to stabilise the dwindling production trend of two big reserves, Lakshmi and Gauri.