ONGC to shut down 2 facilities off Mumbai

ONGC plans to shutdown two production complexes at the Bassein field to hook-up new facilities leading to fall in natural gas availability from 42 million standard cubic meters per day to 29-31 mmscmd, a company official said.

The company will shut BPB process complex from January 1-25, 2008, and BPA complex from February 14-28, 2008, as it needs to hook-up the South Bassein field and the Vasai East field to the production system.

ONGC has invested Rs 2,937 crore (Rs 29.37 billion) in additional development of the South Bassein field and another Rs 1,688 crore (Rs 16.88 billion) in the Vasai East field.

Under these two major development projects, two offshore platforms, namely BCPA-2 and BCPB-2, are being installed near the existing process complexes of BPA and BPB at South Bassein field.

"These two new platforms will be bridge connected to existing BPA and BPB process complexes and during hook-up, integration and pre-commissioning, the BPA and BPB production facility will require shutdown," the official said.

The shutdown of BPB facility for 24 days would reduce gas output by 13.5 million standard cubic meters per day and the 15 day shutdown of BPA facility to cut output by 11 million standard cubic meters per day.

As against current production of 42 mmscmd, gas supply is expected to be in the range of 29 to 31 mmscmd during the shutdown period.

The official said the additional development of South Bassein field was necessary as in the absence of this gas production would have sharply declined from this year onwards.

With implementation of this project additional 20.53 billion cubic meter gas and 1.974 million tons additional condensate would accrue.

The Vasai oil and gas field is a satellite of the Bassein field and it was not economically working out to develop this field on stand alone basis.

Accordingly, its development has been taken up by integration with existing Bassein facilities. This new field is expected to yield around 12,000 b/d of oil and associated gas from 2009-10.