State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) will invest over $9 billion in bringing to production an array of oil and gas discoveries in its prolific Krishna Godavari basin block off the east coast by 2017-18.

ONGC has made 11 oil and gas discoveries in the Block KG-DWN-98/2, which sits next to Reliance Industries’ KG-D6 block and Gujarat State Petroleum Corp’s Deendayal gas field.

The block is divided into northern discovery area and southern discovery area. ONGC plans to invest $9 billion in producing oil and gas from the discoveries in northern discovery area.

“We are looking at producing 2.5-3 million tonnes of oil (per annum) and 9-10 million standard cubic meters per day of gas from the Northern Development Area of Block KG-DWN-98/2,” ONGC Director (Exploration) N.K. Verma told PTI here.

Northern discovery area holds an estimated 92.30 million tonnes of oil reserves and 97.568 billion cubic meters of inplace gas reserves spread over seven fields.

Verma said ONGC has submitted to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) a declaration of commerciality (DoC) for the oil find in the northern discovery area and a detailed field development plan will be submitted within a year.

ONGC had bought 90 per cent interest in Block KG-DWN-98/2 from Cairn Energy India Ltd in 2005. Cairn still holds 10 per cent in the block. Before selling most of its stake and giving away operatorship of the block, Cairn made four discoveries in the area — Padmavati, Kanakdurga, N-1 and R-1 (Annapurna).

Subsequently, ONGC made six significant discoveries — E-1, A1, U1, W1, D-1 and KT-1 in NDA and the first ultra-deepwater discovery UD-1 at a record depth of 2,841 meters.

Northern discovery area comprises discoveries like Padmawati, Kanadurga, D, E, U, A, while the ultra deepsea UD find lies in southern discovery area.

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