ONGC to cap well in KG basin to check gas leak

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) on Tuesday said it is very close to capping a Krishna Godavari basin well that has been leaking natural gas for two months now.

An uncontrolled flow of gas started from the Well G-1-9 in Bay of Bengal around August 30.

"We have been successful in finding a solution to shut the gas flow," ONGC chairman and managing director Sudhir Vasudeva said. "We are about to cap the well." The well, he said, would be sealed in "matter of days."

G-1-9 well was drilled about a decade back and had not been put in production till now. It suddenly started leaking gas towards month end.

ONGC is currently developing KG basin G-1 field along with neighbouring GS-15. Both the fields are marginal or small finds. G-1-9 well was part of this development through which ONGC had planned to produce 2.7 million standard cubic meters of gas and 9,400 barrels of associated oil daily.

Through this, it is targeting to produce 0.982 million tonnes of oil and 5.92 billion cubic meters of gas by 2020-21.

The project at the time of conception in 2003 was to cost Rs 429.82 crore (Rs 4.3 billion) but the cost was subsequently revised to Rs 1,262.93 crore (Rs12.63 billion) in 2004 and then to Rs 2,218.01 crore (Rs 22.18 billion) in 2010.

The company had planned to being production from the fields by April-May, a source said, adding that drilling on GS-15 field was completed last August.

The project had time and cost overrun as the contractor (Clough Ltd of Australia) defaulted in work. ONGC terminated the contract in June 2006.

Of the two, G1 is a deepwater field and is located 20 km away from the shore. GS15 is a shallow water field. G1 was the first deepwater field to be developed by ONGC.