ONGC Plans To Quadruple Output From Bay Of Bengal Gas Field

India’s state-owned exploration company Oil and Natural Gas Corp. will by early 2019 quadruple the output from an offshore gas block in the Bay of Bengal that it spent $1 billion on in 2017, according to a senior ONGC official.

Output from the Deendayal natural gas block off India’s east coast will reach as high as 1 million standard cubic meters per day (MMscm/d) by January 2019, according to Rajesh Kakkar, head of ONGC’s offshore division.

ONGC bought the Deendayal Field in 2017 from state-owned company Gujarat State Petroleum Corp. (GSPC) while it was still undergoing test runs for commercial gas production. The increase in production is marginal against India’s total consumption, although Kakkar said the field has a potential to go up to 3 MMcm/d, which would make up about 4% of ONGC’s total output.