Bombay High, India's largest offshore oil field, accounts for 38 per cent of the domestic production. Though it is known that production from the field owned by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation is declining, what is not known is that there is a 'net' increase in production, due to improved recovery technologies, which are also boosting production in other fields.
N K Mitra, director, offshore, ONGC, talks to
Business Standard. Excerpts:
Production from existing wells is said to be falling. Is this scenario expected to improve?
The rate of recovery from wells in India is around 28 per cent at present. However, with hi-tech drilling and implementation of other advanced technology, this could be increased to 40 per cent by 2020. Recovery from wells has already increased in certain areas from 300 to 400 barrels of oil a day to 800 to 1,000 barrels a day.
Is the production at Bombay High declining?With time, and repeated extraction from the same wells, production volumes naturally decline. However, more drilling is taking place at Bombay High and rotary steerable tools are being used to drill horizontal wells to increase reach to reserves. Therefore, there is a 7-8 per cent natural decrease in production volume. There has been an increase in volumes by 10 to 12
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