Cairn to invest $90 mn in Ravva oil field

Oil explorer Cairn Energy Ltd has said it would invest $90 million, along with its joint venture partners, over the next nine months toward drilling activity at Ravva, the offshore oil and gas field in the KG Basin.

"Ravva is truly a ravva (diamond in the local Telugu dialect) for us. We will invest another $90 million here to explore further opportunities," Richard Heaton, director (Exploration), CEL said.

Exceeding expectations of 70 million barrel of oil equivalent (mmboe), the Ravva field has already produced more than 206 mmboe and is expected to produce another 100 mmboe in the days to come.

With 13 crude oil production wells and seven water injection wells, the current plateau rate of Ravva is 50,000 bopd (barrels of oil per day). The company has already started offshore drilling campaign of six infill wells and one exploration well.

"It is expected that the plateau rate will continue till the end of 2007 and come off the peak thereafter," he added.

Cairn Energy, ONGC, Videocon and Ravva Oil, a wholly owned subsidiary of Marubeni Corporation, have 22.5 per cent, 40 per cent, 25 per cent and 12.5 per cent stakes in the Ravva field respectively.

These joint venture partners have so far invested $700 million in the field since 1994. Claiming Ravva as one of the most efficient operating fields of its size anywhere in the world, Heaton said the operational expenditure of the field in the first half of 2006 is less than $1 per barrel of oil equivalent.

The crude oil produced from the Ravva field is sold to Bongaigaon Refinery & Petro Chemicals Limited (Assam) and to Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Visakhapatnam and gas from the field goes to Gail (India) Limited.

CEL has already committed an investment of $2 billion to develop the Mangala and Aishwariya fields in Rajasthan.