Jubilant re-visits Kathalchari-1 gas discovery
Jubilant Oil & Gas hopes the new gas pricing regime from April 1 will rescue the commercial viability of its Kathalachari-1 gas discovery in Tripura and win approval for a new Declaration of Commerciality (DoC).
Jubilant's first DoC, submitted to the DGH in December 2012, put recoverable reserves at 128-bcf. The DGH lowered this to 50.31-bcf in August 2013 but then relented on January 13 this year accepting a final figure of 71.02-bcf.
Yet at the current fixed price of $4.2/mmbtu, this makes the find at 1260-sq km block AA-ONN-2002/1 unviable. But with the oil ministry set to link domestic gas prices to international benchmarks from April 1, Jubilant will re-submit a DoC by end-February.
"We'll prepare a fresh analysis at $8.4/mmbtu," confirms Jubilant, "and submit a fresh DoC." Jubilant and partner GAIL plan to initially produce 141,000 cm/d (5m cf/d) from three wells by May 2017 and drill another nine to between 3000 and 4000 metres TD for which Jubilant plans to hire an onland 2000-hp rig in July 2016. Jubilant expects the government to take six months to approve the DoC, after which it will spend a year preparing a Field Development Plan (FDP).
Kathalchari-1, drilled to 3400 metres, established non-associated gas, which flowed at 550 cm/d (19,000 cf/d) through a 14/64 inch bean. Jubilant drilled two more appraisal wells to 4000 metres.
