Oil & Natural Gas Corp's plan to extract coal bed methane (CBM) appears to have hit a bump with five of its nine blocks proving to be commercially unviable. The company has already relinquished four blocks and one more will be given up shortly. Coal bed methane (CBM) is a form of natural gas extracted from coal beds. Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) had bagged seven CBM blocks under the government's first two rounds of bidding, and was given another two on nomination basis. Assessment and relinquishment of five blocks have already been completed, and the four blocks, from where commercial production is expected are on the verge of entering into development phase. The blocks that are expected to go into production are located at Jharia, Bokaro and north Karanpura in Jharkhand, and Raniganj in West Bengal.
ONGC can start commercial production only after the Directorate General of Hydrocarbon, the upstream regulator, approves its CBM development plans. While the explorer has already submitted the plans for the Bokaro block, those for Jharia will be done by August 2011 and that for north Karanpura is expected by July this year. The company has started selling some incidentally produced gas from its Jharia block. The delay in production from the Jharia block was because of overlapping captive coal mining and land acquisition problems in the state. According to the regulator's website, the Bokaro block has about 1.2 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas reserve. crackcrack
Company Name | CMP |
---|---|
ONGC | 244.00 |
Oil India | 445.05 |
Jindal Drilling&Inds | 750.20 |
Hind Oil Exploration | 194.95 |
Deep Industries | 614.05 |
View more.. |