PM flags off first oil tanker from KG basin

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday flagged off the first tanker — Swarna Sindhu — carrying crude oil produced in state owned-ongc’s Krishna Godavari deepwater block. At its peak production, this project will add 7 per cent each to India’s oil and gas production, the national oil and gas company said in a statement.

Developed with an investment of over ~41,000 crore, the KG-DWN 98/2 Deepwater Oil Field M in the Krishna Godavari (KG) Basin is considered to be one of the most technologically complex projects in India's oil and gas industry till date.

Total envisaged peak gas and oil production from the project is about 10 million metric standard cubic meters per day (mmscmd) of natural gas, and 45,000 barrels of oil per day.

During its life cycle, the project KG-DWN-98/2 Cluster-ii will add a total of 30.5 bllion cubic meter of gas and 14.24 million metric tonne of oil.

ONGC has stressed the project is a key step in cutting India’s dependency on crude and liquified natural gas import. It stated that all subsea structures were fabricated by Indian manufacturers at Tamil Nadu’s Kattupalli, in line with the the Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiative. Saturday’s event marked oil produced by the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit Armada Sterling V , built and operated by Shapoorji Pallonji Energy Private Limited. The FPSO is located offshore the Godavari River delta in the Bay of Bengal, about 22 kilometres off the coast of Andhra Pradesh, in water depth of over 430 metres.