ONGC marginal fields dataroom from 15th May
COMPANIES INTERESTED in ONGC's marginal fields should get ready to be in Ahmedabad on 15th May.
From that day for about three weeks ONGC will operate a dataroom at its Institute of Reservoir Studies. Make no mistake: ONGC is not planning to give equity stakes in the marginal fields to anyone.
"We will give companies a cash fee to operate and manage the field," says ONGC. "The oil and gas will remain our property.
The oil will have to be delivered to a point nominated by us. As for the gas, it can be sold to a nearby factory or user or can be converted into power and sold to the national grid." ONGC wants to award contracts by August.
How much will the cash fee be "This will be set out in the bid documents, which are now being prepared." On offer are 19 onshore marginal fields in the first round. The next round will have 15 fields - both onshore and offshore.
ONGC tells this report that it has received a good response since it announced plans last year to offer the marginal fields. "About 50 companies came for the pre-bid conference," reveals ONGC.
"We have received several suggestions from them and these are being incorporated in the bid documents." Most of those interested are small-sized Indian upstream companies as well as service contractors. "There are a few foreign companies as well." ONGC has 96 marginal fields lying undeveloped with in-place oil and condensate of 203m tonnes and 120bn cm gas.
But not all of them will be offered to private developers. ONGC will develop some of the bigger-sized marginal fields such as offshore Mumbai D-1-South and KG offshore G-1 and GS-15.