ONGC discovers oil in Arabian sea

Find estimated at 20 million tonnes

State-owned Oil and Nat-

ural Gas Corp. (ONGC) has

made a significant oil dis-

covery to the west of its

prime Mumbai High fields

in the Arabian sea, a

senior official said on

Wednesday.

The discovery in the

well WO-24-3 is estimated

to hold an in-place reserve

of about 20 million

tonnes, he said. Mumbai

High, India’s biggest oil

field, currently produces

205,000 barrels of oil per

day (just over 10 million

tonnes per annum) and

the new find would add to

that production in less

than two years time.

Further Assessment

“This is a mid-sized dis-

covery but a significant

one,” the official said.

The new find, which

comes almost 50 years

after ONGC began produc-

tion in Mumbai High, will

help the company main-

tain production levels

from the basin for a longer

time than currently

estimated.