ONGC Seeks Partners To Raise Oil And Gas Production From 64 Fields

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd. on Friday invited proposals from firms willing to partner with it for increasing oil and gas production from its 64 marginal fields.

These 64 fields have been clubbed into 17 onshore contract areas that have a cumulative 300 million tonne of oil and oil equivalent natural gas reserves, ONGC said.

ONGC wants partners who can raise output beyond a pre-agreed baseline and will share revenues from such incremental production with them.

“Salient features of the ONGC offering (include) complete marketing and pricing freedom to sell oil and gas on arm's length basis through competitive basis,” the statement said.

The contractor will be selected on a revenue sharing basis.

“The revenue will be shared on incremental production over and above the baseline production under Business-As-Usual (BAU) scenario,” it said.

Contract period will be for 15 years with an option to extend by five years.

ONGC invited bids under the production enhancement contract from interested firms, which can bring in technology for raising the output. The company will hold a pre-bid meeting on Sept. 17 and bidding will close on Dec. 20, 2019.

The Narendra Modi government has been unhappy with ONGC over its stagnant oil and gas production. In 2018, ONGC and the government agreed upon inducting partners to raise production from small and marginal fields.

ONGC had previously experimented with PEC contracts for two fields but has not been able to select a partner because of receiving conditional bids.

The latest PEC tender has more liberal terms.

ONGC said exploration will be permitted during the contract period including the right to explore all kinds of hydrocarbon. "Contractors will not be required to reimburse any expenses already incurred by ONGC," it said. "Incentives shall be available for achieving production higher than the committed incremental production."

Announcing Notice Inviting Offer seeking partners for enhancement of oil and gas production, ONGC said it intends to maximize recovery from the 64 fields by infusion of new technology.

“The offer shall allow interested companies to participate in the International Competitive Bidding (ICB) process,” it said. “Companies, either alone or in consortium or joint ventures, may bid for one or more contract areas. The bidders are required to fulfill the requisite technical and financial criteria and the bids would be evaluated on the basis of revenue sharing from the incremental oil and gas production.”

A pre-bid conference will be held at ONGC Corporate Office, New Delhi. Bidders interested in studying the data can purchase field information dockets and data packages. Interested companies can access the data viewing facility at Institute of Reservoir Studies, ONGC, Ahmedabad.