India’s ONGC has awarded contracts to Nauvata Energy Transition Enterprise (NET Enterprise) and its US consortium partner PERC Engineering for pre-FEED, FEED, and project management consulting (PMC) at two new projects in the Bay of Bengal.
NET Enterprise announced the wins on 17 April in Bangalore. The contracts cover concept studies, preparation of the tender bid package, and PMC to begin developing several deepwater projects in and near ONGC’s flagship KG-DWN-98/2 block in the Krishna Godavari basin.
Two projects are targeted in the recent contract award.
1. Integrated development of the DWN-E1 and DWN-F1 wells in Cluster-1 of the KG-DWN-98/2 block and the nearby GS29 asset.
2. Tie-in of the G-1-9 sub and G-1-15 wells to the existing G1 manifold.
These latest contracts follow ONGC’s achieving first oil from its $5-billion KG-DWN-98/2 Cluster 2 development on which NET Enterprises and its consortium partner, UK-based Consub, handled PMC for the SURF-SPS, FPSO, and onshore scopes of work.
India’s Oil and Gas Production To Turn Positive and Stay Positive
KG-DWN-98/2 production from Cluster 2 is projected to plateau at 10 million std m3/d of gas and 40,000 B/D by 2026. It will sustain that level for 2 more years, ONGC’s Chief of Corporate Planning Pavan Agarwal told reporters during the company’s Q3/FY24 earnings call on 12 February.
By FY28 however, “other infill wells will be coming up” and together with Cluster-1 production “will make up for the early decline,” he told analysts. ONGC also expects its Daman Upside shallow-water project offshore India’s west coast to be contributing 1.5 billion m3 of gas by 2027.
Overall, India expects a yearly 5 to 6% increase in oil and gas production building up to an overall 15% uptick by 2027, Agarwal said.
ONGC’s East Coast Flagship Projects Rank High in Engineering Challenges
ONGC’s KG-DWN-98/2 is considered one of the most complex deepwater projects in the world. At the 2023 Offshore Technology Conference Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, ONGC authors presented OTC 32841 detailing the digital systems being created for reservoir, production, and asset information to be joined with collaborative management to create a digital twin and optimize operations.
The authors said that production can only be optimized by continuous monitoring, citing challenges such as high-pressure/high-temperature downhole conditions and the high wax content of the crude itself which challenges flow assurance and leads to a shorter "No Touch Time” that causes hydrates to form and wax to deposit within hours of shutdown.
Another paper, ISOPE-I-21-1115, presented at the 31st International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference in Greece in June 2021, conceptualizes floating structures and riser systems suitable for surface and subsea conditions that exist off India’s east coast.
In addition to water depths exceeding 2500 m, engineers face geohazards and a harsh environment characterized by strong ocean currents and cyclonic weather that creates very large waves.
Commenting on the Cluster-1 awards, Ashwin Raikar, managing director of NET Enterprise, said, “Nauvata is proud to have yet another opportunity to contribute towards the achievement of energy self-sufficiency by our nation.”
“We are thankful to ONGC … and hope to exceed their expectations on this project,” he added. “We are proud to say that complete deepwater subsea work from front-end engineering to final completion of the project is led by a local Indian company in line with the (country’s) Atmanirbhar Bharat vision, referring to the Indian government’s economic-growth initiative which translates to English from Hindi as “self-reliant India.”
Bangalore-based NET Enterprise is an EPCM, PMC, and engineering services provider in oil and gas and energy transition areas such as biofuels, carbon capture, plastic circularity, and green hydrogen. It also provides operations digitalization services customized to the needs of the oil and gas industry.
PERC Engineering LLC is a Houston-based engineering services provider focused since 2013 on the upstream, midstream, offshore, and subsea sectors of the oil and gas industry.
For Further Reading
OTC 32841 Integrated Operations System: Implementation of a Truly Integrated Digital Oil Field and Development of Digital Twin by P. Amal Balachandran and K. Vipin Krishna Padmanabhan, ONGC.
ISOPE-I-21-1115 Floating Structural Concepts and Riser Systems for Deep and Ultradeep Water for East Coast of India by Ove T. Gudmestad and Daniel N. Karanakaran, University of Stavanger.
India on Track To Supplant China as World’s Biggest Energy Consumer by Pat Davis Szymczak, JPT.
