Get ready for WO-16 cluster tender from ONGC
Contractors take note: ONGC will soon be issuing an EPC tender to develop its long-neglected Cluster W0-16 group of marginal fields in 70-metre water depths offshore Mumbai.
ONGC wants four well-head platforms and processing facilities and 113-km of connecting subsea pipelines installed at Cluster WO-16 in a contract estimated to be worth Rs2930cr ($633.8m). PETROWATCH learns ONGC internal teams are preparing the WO-16 development proposal so it can be cleared by the company’s Project Appraisal Committee (PAC).
After this approval, the proposal will go before ONGC’s board for final clearance and a tender will then be issued. According to an ONGC source, clearance by the PAC is a prelude to board approval, which he says “then becomes just a formality as the PAC is a subcommittee of the board.
” If everything proceeds smoothly, ONGC wants all facilities installed at WO-16 by March 2012. ONGC estimates that cluster WO-16 has approximately 3m tonnes of recoverable oil and 10bn cubic metres of gas (0.353-tcf) in total.
Observers expect cluster WO-16 to produce a total of 20,000 b/d of oil and 2.5m cm/d of gas over a 16-year period from 16 wells, which have yet to be drilled. We are told ONGC needs to get an oil price of $47/barrel and a gas price of $4.2/mmbtu to justify development and production costs.
Cluster WO-16 is made up of marginal fields B-119/B-121, discovered in 1981; WO-5 discovered in 1992; and WO-15 and WO-16 discovered in 1995. Only B-119/B-121 has ever been put on production – it produced about 1bn cubic metres of gas for a year before being shut down in 1997 after a blow-out.
Oil at cluster WO-16 has an API between 37 degrees and 38 degrees.