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Even as the Centre has set the ball rolling for the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) bid round-1 under the Hydrocarbon Exploration & Licensing Policy (HELP), unconventional sources such as shale gas and coal-bed methane (CBM) have seen slow adoption by investors.
According to the geology of sedimentary basins of offered blocks under HELP, Gujarat’s thick Cambay shale, the major source rock in Cambay basin, has the potential for shale oil and shale gas.
Atanu Chakraborty, Director General, Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), confirmed the presence of rich prospects of unconventional reserves such as shale along the Gujarat coast and on the eastern shores.
“We have opened it (shale gas) up through the unified licences scheme. We had opened it last year through Discovered Small Field (DSF) by giving unified licences. Now, it’s up to the players.
“CBM has already started in the eastern part of the country. We are already doing 2 million standard cubic metres per day (mmscmd).
“These are baby steps but unconventional has started. Now the focus is on shale and the progress has started. We are waiting to see the results,” said Chakraborty on the sidelines of a promotional event for OALP Bid Round 1 in Ahmedabad on Thursday.
Field development plans
He further said all the 30 players offered contracts under the unified licences are capable of exploring for shale gas. “They are formulating their field development plans (FDP). They are first looking at conventional prospects and then moving to unconventional. But their interests are coming up,” he said.
According to the DGH, in Gujarat, 15 blocks — including 12 onshore and three shallow water off-shore — were put on offer under the OALP Bid Round 1 with a total area of 16,502 sq km.
Of these, Cambay has 11 on-shore basins with a total area of 7,751 sq km, with undiscovered hydrocarbon of 786 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent (MMTOE).
The Kutch basin, according to the DGH, has two blocks — one each onshore with 2,690 sq km and off-shore on 2,960 sq km — with undiscovered resources of 827 MMTOE.
The Saurashtra basin has the largest explored reserves in the State with 1,246 MMTOE in two blocks in shallow off-shore with an area of 3,301 sq km.
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