Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd and its partner will invest $479 million in developing three Mumbai offshore fields it won on service contract from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

"A capital investment of about $166 million and operational expenditure of $313 million have been planned by the consortium," HPCL [Get Quote] Chairman and Managing Director M B Lal told reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday evening.

ONGC [Get Quote] has awarded the service contract for development of its B-192, B-45 and WO-24 fields, known as Cluster 7, south-west of the Mumbai High field to a consortium of HPCL, Prize Petroleum Comnpany Ltd and Malaysia's M3nergy Berhad (Trenergy).

The contract for the fields was signed by HPCL general manager (corporate strategy) O P Pradhan and ONGC Deputy General Manager D Satija on Wednesday evening.

ONGC CMD R S Sharma said the development of marginal fields was one of the strategic business pursuits of ONGC for increasing production from unlocking small pools of discovered hydrocarbon reserves.

"ONGC has identified 153 marginal fields out of which 38 fields have been monetised and 94 fields are under monetisation," he said.

The Cluster 7 fields would produce 18,865 barrels of oil per day and 0.887 million standard cubic meters of gas per day.

HPCL holds 60 per cent interest in the consortium that would develop Cluster 7 fields, holding 38 million barrels of recoverable oil and having a producing life of between 12-15 years of which 10 years will see 'peak production'.

Prize has 10 per cent stake and M3nergy the remaining 30 per cent.

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