Essar Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Ltd (EOGEPL) on Tuesday mentioned coal seam fuel (CBM) output from its Raniganj East block in West Bengal has crossed 0.8 million commonplace cubic meters per day and is on monitor to triple the manufacturing in 24-30 months.
The firm was beforehand handicapped by an absence of a pipeline to take the fuel discovered under coal seams, known as coal-bed methane or CBM, to customers resembling fertilizer vegetation however that hurdle has now been crossed with the commissioning of state-owned GAIL (India) Ltd’s Urja Ganga truck line.
“Our production had to be curtailed to 450,000 standard cubic meters per day but with the commissioning of the pipeline in May 2021, we have been ramping up output. It has now touched 825,000 standard cubic meters per day (0.82 mmscmd),” EOGEPL CEO and Director Pankaj Kalra mentioned.
The firm has introduced cutting-edge know-how that can assist ramp up the output to 1 mmscmd by September or October, he mentioned.
“We have already invested about Rs 5,500 crore in the block and plan to drill some 200 more wells in the next 18-20 months. This will help triple output to 2.5-3 mmscmd in 24-30 months’ time,” he mentioned.
India has been pushing for the manufacturing of CBM and different unconventional assets to complement the supply of pure fuel – the feedstock for the era of energy, manufacturing of fertilizer and foundation for CNG for vehicles and piped cooking fuel for households.
It desires to boost the share of environment-friendly gas in its main power basket to fifteen per cent by 2030 from the present 6.7 per cent. Projects like EOGEPL’s Raniganj East will assist obtain that concentrate on.
“The importance of domestic gas in the energy basket for any developing country like India is extremely crucial considering the uptrend in gas demand, price and rising import bills. “EOGEPL has always led the path and is strategically focused on the development of unconventional hydrocarbons in India,” Kalra mentioned. The delay within the GAIL Urja Ganga trunk line prompted quite a few challenges for the agency.
“However, steady efforts and technological applications to ramp up gas production to double the production and cross 0.8 mmscmd have brought us back on track. Our next milestone remains 1.0 mmscmd and we are putting concerted effort to reach it at the earliest,” he mentioned.
The future ramp-up might be an integration of re-fracturing and revival of wells, alongside contemporary technological purposes, lots of which is able to boast of its first time utility in CBM in India and can be in keeping with EOGEPL’s pioneering endeavours of CBM within the nation.
As of now, EOGEPL operates round 350 wells within the block and since May 2021 with a scientific strategy of nicely revival, know-how utility and shut monitoring, the corporate has been in keeping with the ramp-up forecast, he mentioned. The area administration throughout the Covid window with numerous providers/logistics limitations had additionally been a problem that was efficiently mitigated.
Besides CBM, the block has an estimated 8 trillion cubic ft of in-place shale fuel reserves which the corporate plans to faucet by by drilling a check nicely someday between October 2022 and March 2023, Kalra mentioned including the globally 20 per cent of in-place shale fuel reserves are recoverable (may be dropped at manufacturing), which supplies 1.6-2 Tcf of such reserves within the block.
The block holds 1.1 Tcf (trillion cubic ft) of in-place reserves.
Kalra mentioned the CBM fuel is offered to state-owned GAIL on the formulation linked to worldwide Brent crude oil costs. The fee presently is USD 12-12.2 per million British thermal unit.
Source: www.financialexpress.com”