ONGC, RIL seal mega offshore pact to cut costs, boost energy security

Betul (Goa): In a strategic move to boost offshore energy exploration and operational efficiency, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) and Reliance Industries Ltd have signed an agreement to share resources such as rigs and supply vessels used in finding and producing oil and gas.

The two firms signed the agreement “to enable resource sharing for deepwater offshore exploration and production operations on India’s East Coast, particularly across the Krishna Godavari (KG) basin and Andaman offshore” on the sidelines of India Energy Week (IEW), ONGC Director (Production) Pankaj Kumar said. This marks a major step towards cost optimisation, faster execution, improved asset utilisation in complex deepwater projects and creating stronger synergies between India’s largest oil and gas producer and the nation’s biggest and most valuable company who have adjacent fields and operations particularly off the east coast, he said. It seeks to explore opportunities to jointly utilise resources, infrastructure, and technical capabilities across offshore energy activities so as to reduce duplication of efforts, optimise capital deployment, and support timely development of offshore assets, which are critical to meeting India’s growing energy demand.

“ONGC and Reliance will pursue sharing of key resources required for offshore operations, which may include (but is not limited to): onshore and offshore processing facilities, drilling rigs, marine vessels (MSV, Tugs, PSV), power, pipelines, logging and well services etc,” ONGC said.