India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) will invest US$5.1 billion (340.12 billion rupees) over the next four years in the development of a deepwater oil and gas block off India's east coast, the company tweeted on Friday.
ONGC will be developing the Cluster 2 oil and gas fields in the block KG-DWN-98/2, which is expected to produce first gas in 2019 and first oil in 2020, the company said via Twitter in August of this year. Peak daily production from the project is expected to be 16.30 million cubic meters of gas and 77,300 barrels of oil.
In March of this year, ONGC's board of directors approved the field development plan for the Cluster 2. The expected peak daily production rates would account for nearly 17 percent of ONGC's current crude oil production rate and for 27.6 percent of its natural gas output rate.
Apart from looking to develop projects in and offshore India, ONGC is betting on Russian fields. Earlier this year, the Indian company raised US$1 billion in proceeds from bond issues, which will be used to refinance a loan, taken out to fund the acquisition of a 15-percent stake in the giant Vankor field from Rosneft. ONGC was the first Indian company to sign an agreement with Rosneft to buy into Vankor. Then three other Indian groups - Bharat Petroleum, Indian Oil Corp, and Oil India - also joined the party, agreeing to buy 23.9 percent in Vankor.
Earlier this month, ONGC and Rosneft signed a deal under which ONGC will buy another 11 percent in the company running the Vankor field and thus raise its stake to 26 percent.
Earlier this week, the Indian government officially endorsed Oil India, Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat Petro to buy the 23.9-percent interest in JSC Vankorneft.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More