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ONGC and an Australian university have set their eyes on tapping oil resources in some tough and challenging locales in India.
The research initiative will evaluate the potential of these unconventional oil resources, called basement reservoirs. The School of Petroleum Engineering at the UNSW (University of New South Wales), Sydney, and the ONGC have forged a research agreement.
The project will assess the feasibility of recovering hydrocarbon fuel from these hard to access, offshore geological structures called basement reservoirs. ONGC is keen on carrying out initial operations at its Mumbai offshore basin, a report from the University said.
The $2.05-million project will be executed over the next two-and-a-half years. This is the fourth major project between UNSW and ONGC since first signing a memorandum of understanding in 2002.
“These are very hard rocks that contain fractures which, in turn, contain oil that is very difficult to extract,” explains Professor Val Pinczewski, Head of the School of Petroleum Engineering. “This is an important partnership for UNSW that has grown with time,” says Prof Pinczewski.
“At UNSW we have ongoing programmes in geothermal energy, led by Prof Sheik Rahman, which basically look at characterising fracture systems in rock structures and forming strategies to develop these fractured reservoirs. We also have ongoing programmes in fracturing hard rocks to enhance production. Together, these research efforts will provide the framework for this project,” the report says.
After developing suitable mathematical models, experiments with rock samples provided by ONGC will be conducted on field to test how much oil is recoverable.
“The actual technology you need to develop these reservoirs is not much different from the technology used to develop shale gas,” says Prof Pinczewski. “This is already very big in the US, and has the potential to become very big in Australia.”
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