HOEC to increase output three-fold
Hindustan Oil Exploration Company (HOEC), which has acquired the entire share capital of Geopetrol International this week, has said it is set to increase its net production by more than three-fold from 1,800 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOE/D) to 8,000 BOE/D in three years.
“Through the acquisition, we have become the largest private sector oil and gas player in the Northeast. From a mere net production of 400 BOE/D in 2016-17, we have increased our production to 1,800 BOE/D in 2017-18 and we are planning to further increase to 8,000 BOE/D by 2020-21,” said P Elango, managing director of the company. He added that the new acquisition, that includes its entry into the Kharsang oilfield in Arunachal Pradesh, was going to be a game changer for the company.
The company is targeting an overall investment of around $35 million in the next three years. Elango claims that this will completely be funded through internal sources as HOEC is a debt-free company with a cash balance of ~1.3 billion.
HOEC is an operator in five onshore and two offshore blocks and in addition to this, it has participating interest in two offshore blocks. A major boost to the company in the last one year was through its production in Dirok field in Assam, in which Indian Oil Corporation and Oil India Ltd are partners. “We are ramping up production from Assam by drilling two more wells in addition to the existing four. From a production of 2 million cubic feet of gas from the PY-1 field in Bay of Bengal, we expect an increase to 10 million cubic feet by July and increase our net production to 3,600 BOE/D this year,” he added.
In the recently concluded discovered small and marginal field auctions, the company had won a field B-80 in Bombay High, which is expected to bring in around 15 million cubic feet of production by April 2020.
The company has already submitted its field development plan. According to the plan, development of this field will happen in two phases at an overall investment of $43 million.