BP or Shell as Mumbai High tech consultant
Shell has shown interest in competing with BP for ONGC's tender to hire a Technical Service Provider (TSP) to increase Mumbai High production.
On October 16 (2024), ONGC held a pre-bid in Delhi for this ten-year assignment with an optional five-year extension. Senior BP and Shell executives attended the event, where ONGC bosses, including director production Pankaj Kumar, took questions.
ONGC and the oil ministry want bids by end-December (2024). "BP seems okay with this, but it has major concerns about the tender terms," says a source.
"Shell, apparently, hasn't made up its mind (on whether to bid), but it wants more time (beyond December 2024) if it decides to bid." ONGC also apparently wanted TotalEnergies to participate.
"ONGC reached out to Total through the Adani Group (both are partners in the Dhamra LNG terminal), but Total wasn't interested," we hear. According to ONGC's June 1 (2024) tender terms, the TSP will receive a fixed fee plus a share of production, provided the quarterly incremental output is at least 80% above the baseline.
BP and Shell disagree with ONGC's definition of the baseline. "For ONGC, the baseline is the current production, which has been maintained over several years with workovers, water injection, and gas lift," our source adds.
"BP and Shell want the baseline to be production without workovers, water injection and other improved or Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods; this is the main point of disagreement." Globally, no quick fix is available to boost hydrocarbon production from any field.
"It must be a combination of methods based on the reservoir dynamics and simulation studies," we hear. For instance, "increasing the bean size will boost production, but will cause more water ingress; water ingress in Mumbai High is 0% to 90%."
Production can be increased by reducing pressure in Mumbai High separators or pressure vessels for separating the well stream into liquid and gas. This will require the installation of low-pressure compressors to compress gas from 8-kg/sq-centimetre to 15-kg/sq-centimetre and a compressor to further compress it to 80-kg/sq-centimetre to feed into the pipeline.