Agartala: The ONGC Tripura Asset has recorded the highest-ever annual gas production at 1,675 Million Standard Cubic Metres (MMSCM) in the northeastern state for FY 2022-23, breaking all its previous records, a senior official said on Friday. Prior to this, the maximum amount of natural gas produced by ONGC in the northeastern state was during FY 2020-21, when the company registered a gas output of 1,634 MMSCM.
“Oil and gas exploration is a risky business, where the outputs do not always tally with the inputs and there are so many moving parts and involvement of technology at every step of the way. We are happy that the ONGC Tripura Asset has managed to pull it off despite inherent challenges”, the official said.
He said to achieve record production and also to sustain a high level of output in the coming days, a lot of operational initiatives were set in motion in the past couple of years such as installation of plunger lifts, mobile separators and regular activation of low-pressure wells.
“Besides, in order to overcome the logistical and geological challenges of the region ONGC has also recently commissioned Aerial Hydrocarbon Survey to map the more remote locations and Advanced Hi-tech Drilling Rigs to drill deeper and more accurate wells in difficult terrain,” he said.
At present, five-to-six rigs are operational for search gas while out of three hi-tech rigs, one has already been commissioned and two will be pressed into service shortly.
Despite the remoteness of the fields and high decline rates, ONGC Tripura Asset has registered a 3 percent production growth in the last six years. Not just that, the asset has breached the 5 MMSCMD mark, a coveted operational benchmark for many years 49 times in FY 2022-23.
The ONGC Tripura Asset also held regular interactions with its gas customers OTPC, TSECL, GAIL, TNGCL as well as regulatory agencies in order to plan power plants’ maintenance shutdowns more effectively. This has contributed to a significant reduction in consumer shutdown loss from 201 MMSCM in FY 2021-22 to 92 MMSCM in FY 2022-23.
He assured not just ONGC’s continuous business growth in the state, but also about how the region itself would become a hallmark of sustainable development in the entire country.
