In its quest to seek frontier hydrocarbons, ONGC has decided to set up four ‘centres of deliveries’—Delhi for coal bed methane, Vadodara for shale oil, Mumbai for basement exploration and Chennai for exploration of high pressure, high temperature basins.
Business Line learns that the Chairman and Managing Director of ONGC, Sudhir Vasudeva, has issued instructions for the constitution of expert teams at these four CoDs and the respective asset managers are in the process of building the teams.
These four centres will take ONGC to the cutting edge of technology thus enabling it to seek hydrocarbons.
For example, ‘basement exploration’ refers to drilling below the ‘basement’ of the basins, through the rocky bottom.
A senior official of ONGC told Business Line on Monday that oil companies the world over have drilled below basement and found oil and gas.
Similarly, drilling in ‘high-pressure, high-temperature drilling’ – a typical feature of basins on the East coast of India, is a capability that ONGC does not have today.
A good example is the free gas discovered off Andaman seas, which requires special drilling capabilities.
ONGC will be seeking collaborations in these areas, sources said.