ONGC to commence natural gas production from KG-D5 block

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) will commence natural gas production from cluster-II fields in KG-D5 block from June 15, 2023. The block will initially produce 0.4 million standard cubic metres per day (mscmd) which will be ramped up to 1.4 mscmd by February 5, 2024. ONGC has sought bids for sale of natural gas from users like city gas operators that sell compressed natural gas, piped cooking gas, liquefied petroleum gas producers and traders, etc. ONGC was originally to start gas production from Cluster-II fields in June 2019 and oil production in March 2020. However, owing to contracting and supply chain issues, the oil production start date was first revised to November 2021, then to the third quarter of 2022 and now to June 2023. Besides, the gas output flow target was revised to May 2021, then to May 2023 and now to May 2024. The blocks have been merged into three clusters such as Cluster-I, II and III. Currently, Cluster II is being implemented first for production, and the field is divided into two blocks i.e., II-A and II-B. Originally, the investment decision was anticipated to produce 23.52 million tonne of oil and 50.70 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas over the life of the field. Earlier in April 2018, ONGC had estimated the capital expenditure to be USD5.07 billion, and operational expenditure to be USD5.12 billion over a field life of 16 years.