State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has struck a large gas field in the Krishna Godavari basin in Bay of Bengal, home for the gigantic gas find of Reliance Industries Ltd. ONGC's in-house deep sea drillship Sagar Vijay encountered large gas bearing structures while drilling its maiden well in the G4- AB location, adjacent to RIL's gas bearing KG-DWN-98/3 block.
The well is to be drilled to a depth of 2,500 meters and gas indications have already been observed at a number of places in the interval of 1,580-1,720 meters, highly placed company sources said. While the reserves have not yet been tested as the well is yet to reach its target depth, priminary indications point to a potential of little less than a trillion cubic feet of gas.
ONGC, which has about a dozen exploration blocks in the highly prospective KG basin, will be deploying another deep-sea drillship chartered from Transocean Inc. of US in the basin next month.