“The operations are at an advanced stage and we are expecting production from this block very soon.
"This can happen any time during the July-September period,” a top official in the ministry of energy, Gujarat government, told Business Standard.
The official did not want to be identified.
The Gujarat government-owned GSPC had announced a gas find at the DD-west block in mid-2005. Such was the excitement for the state government that Chief Minister Narendra Modi claimed the gas find to be at 20 trillion cubic feet.
Later, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons certified the same reserves at 2 TCF.
With gas production at DD-west expected to begin shortly, the next six months will change the fate of the state-run exploration and production player.
The development will also provide relief to the overleveraged condition of the state venture.
Burdened with huge loans of Rs 12,000 crore (Rs 120 billion), GSPC has already made an investment of Rs 7,000 crore (Rs 70 billion) in exploration and development at the block in the KG basin.
A recent statement by the energy minister, Saurabh Patel, in the state assembly showed GSPC had spent Rs 3,924 crore (Rs 39.24 billion) on exploration in the KG basin over the
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