India's deepest oil well one hour from Pakistan
By the time you receive this report, ONGC can boast her deepest oil well.
We are told its GK-27/1 well will have reached target depth of 5,615 metres on or about 20th December. Where is this well GK-27/1 is offshore Gujarat in the Gulf of Kutch and only 90 miles from the Pakistani border.
Floater drillship ' Frontier Duchess' owned by Norway's Frontier Drilling and operated by Jagson International is drilling here. GK-27/1 is also the deepest well ever drilled by the Frontier Duchess, which is sitting in 120 metres water depth and began drilling on 31st July.
A 13 3/8 inches casing was lowered at 2,500 metres, a 9 5/8 inches casing at 4,100 metres and a 7-inch liner at target depth. "We are drilling steadily," reveals a source.
"Logging and coring is still to be done but everybody is happy as progress is better than expected." Drilling has been largely incident free, except for jitters among the 82 crew ahead of the US air strikes on Afghanistan. "The rig is barely one hour away by helicopter from Pakistan and much less by a fighter plane or missile.
She is the only rig in the line of fire." There was also a five-day suspension in May during a cyclone. What are the drilling results Will GK-27/1 be a dry hole ONGC is tight-lipped and wants no prying eyes around till it's ready to talk.
After GK-27/1, Frontier Duchess could drill one more well in the vicinity. She is on a two-year contract with ONGC.
