Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday hailed the state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) for commencing oil production at its flagship deep-water project.
“This is a remarkable step in India’s energy journey and boosts our mission for an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. It will have several benefits for our economy as well”, Modi said in a tweet.
Notably, the ONGC started oil production at its flagship deep-water project in the Krishna Godavari basin off the nation’s eastern coast on Sunday.
In an official statement, the state-owned company said that “this 98/2 project is likely to increase ONGC's total oil and gas production by 11 percent and 15 percent, respectively”.
Phase 1 of the project was successfully executed by the company in March 2020. The ONGC had at the time commenced production at the U field of the KG-DWN-98/2 Block in the record time of 10 months.
Information about the oil production was shared by Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri on X (formerly Twitter).
“First Oil production commences from the complex & difficult deepwater KG-DWN-98/2 Block, situated off the coast of Bay of Bengal”, Puri said in a tweet hailing the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for powering India’s energy production.
He, however, didn’t share details about the current output, but said that “production is expected to be 45,000 barrels per day & over 10 million cubic metres of gas per day”.
Hailing the project for “contributing towards an energy Aatmanirbhar Bharat" (self-dependent India), the minister said that the project is expected to add seven percent to the current national oil production and seven percent to national Natural Gas production.