ONGC Videsh Starts Its First Oil, Gas Exploratory Drilling Campaign In Bangladesh

New Delhi: ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) on Thursday announced that it has started exploration of a well in an offshore block in Bangladesh. OVL has become the first Indian entity to search for oil and gas in the neighbouring nation. ONGC Videsh is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), the flagship national oil company of India.

The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, in a statement, said, "OVL has spudded well Kanchan 1 in Block SS04, Bangladesh at Maheshkhali Island. This exploratory well is planned to be drilled to a depth of 4,200 meters and will be targeting two prospective formations."

"This marks the beginning of exploratory drilling in Bangladesh by ONGC Videsh and will be followed by drilling at two more exploratory locations," it added.

"OVL, in consortium with Oil India Ltd (OIL), was awarded two shallow offshore Blocks SS-04 and SS-09 in Bangladesh during the Bid Round of 2012. The Production Sharing Contract (PSC) was signed between ONGC Videsh, OIL and Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration & Production Company Limited (BAPEX) in February, 2014," the Ministry stated.

It also mentioned that OVL, with participating interest (PI) of 45%, is the operator; Oil India has 45% PI and BAPEX holds the rest of 10% PI. OVL and Oil India are equally bearing BAPEX share of exploration cost up to commercial discovery stage.

The Ministry also stated that pre-drilling activities were completed in late 2019 and with spudding scheduled for March 2020, but the process had to be deferred due to COVID-19 pandemic.

After the easing of restrictions and resolving the issues owing to deferment of initial plans, in September 2021, the drilling of well has commenced on 29th September 2021, OVL said.