Venezuela wins Baghewala heavy oil project from Oil India
Petroleos de Venezuela has won a consultancy job from Oil India to determine whether heavy oil deposits at Baghewala in Rajasthan can be commercially exploited.
We understand the contract will be signed at the end of this month (October). PDVSA's remit is "to carry out geoscientific studies and experiments to see the suitability of thermal recovery processes" and "to recommend and help select the pilot process, monitor and asses the performance of the pilot project" and finally to "decide and prepare full scale field development and implementation if the pilot is successful." Oil India predicts Baghewala has in-place reserves of 16m tonnes heavy oil and 32m tonnes of bitumen.
It is the heaviest oil ever discovered in India with a specific gravity of 0.98 and viscosity of 1,700 centipoids. Baghewala once belonged to Reliance but reverted to Oil India.
