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INDIA
BUSINESS WORLD -
FEBRUARY 2006
THE MONTH THAT WAS
GSPC STRIKES GAS IN TARAPUR BLOCK
Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) has struck gas at its Tarapur oil block in Anand district of Gujarat. This is second gas discovery by the company in past one year. The earlier discovery was at the KG-Basin block, which is estimated to have a reserve of about 20 tcf worth $50 billion making it one of the biggest gas discoveries in 2005. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said that gas was discovered in the Tarapur block two days ago and that the pressure of the gas was "good".
A GSPC official said that the high pressure gas was encountered at less than 2,000 meters during the drilling process of the third well in Tarapur. In fact, the discovery of gas has come as a surprise to the company officials as they were not expecting gas in the region. The first two wells which were drilled in the range of 2,000 meters to 2,300 meters had shown only oil reserves. "A preliminary estimate of the gas reserve will be possible only after the tests have been carried out," the official said. Tests could take about two months.
Oil was first discovered in the Tarapur block in May last year and the initial recoverable oil reserve was estimated to be around 5-7 million barrels. The block was earlier abandoned by oil and gas major ONGC Ltd.
The company is looking to partner with a gas exploration and production company for exploration in KG Basin. Oil and gas majors like Petrobras of Brazil, Petronas of Malaysia along with Shell, ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, British Gas, ENI of Italy, Total of France and Enadarko have evinced interest in becoming a strategic partner of GSPC to develop the KG Basin. .
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