Cairn India to invest $100m to drill well in KG basin

HYDERABAD

Cairn India and its joint venture partners of Ravva fields are planning to invest about USD 100 million to drill a deeper well in the KrishnaGodavari basin.

The JV plans to drill the exploration well to 4,000 meters deep, and estimates that the deepwater prospect in the Ravva Oil Fields may hold about 350-billion cubic feet of ‘recoverable gas’, sources told media. The drilling program is expected to start in the second half of next financial year. In a recently concluded meeting, the Ravva JV has approved the operator’s proposal to drill one exploratory well with an estimated investment of USD 90 to USD 100 million, a source said. JV officials could not be reached for their comments. Cairn India, with 22.5 percent stake as an operator in the venture, shares Ravva with Marubeni-owned Ravva Oil (12.5 percent), Videocon (25 percent) and ONGC (40 percent). The PSC was signed in 1994 with Command Petroleum as operator, which sold its stake to Cairn.

According to industry experts the JV will need a rig that can drill ‘high temperature/high pressure’ well in water depths of up to 20 meters.

Ravva has already completed over 17 years of production. Originally estimated to produce 101 million barrels of crude oil, the field has to date produced more than 249 million barrels and sold 310 billion cubic feet of gas.