Antelopus delays development of two DSF blocks

Oil and gas newcomer Antelopus Energy is taking its cue from big players like ONGC and waiting before deciding when to begin the development of its two DSF-2 offshore clusters.

An Antelopus source tells us the company is focusing on the MB/OSDSF/D31/2018 cluster of five marginal fields off Mumbai located between 110-km and 250-km off the west coast in water depths of 75-90 metres. Antelopus wants to drill two development wells in Phase-I at the D12 field within the cluster to produce 1m cm/d of gas but is yet to award a drilling contract.

"We are talking to the standard drillers locally and also watching the drilling plans of big operators such as ONGC, who are struggling because of the large number of Coronavirus positive cases offshore," says our source. "We will be comforted if they (big operators) go ahead with plans to hire rigs."

Antelopus has however awarded the main EPC contracts, including for "a small, four-slot processing platform" to handle gas condensate and other liquids from D12, and two subsea pipelines each of 20-km with 'tie-ins’ and integrated services. Our source adds these jobs have gone mainly to overseas companies but declined to give names.

Antelopus was originally planning to begin offshore development work in April 2020 but because of the pandemic missed the fair-weather window which ended mid-May and is now aiming to begin work in late September.