Boosting the domestic natural gas production of India, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) is on its way to commercialising another hydrocarbon basin, the Vindhyan Basin.

The Vindhyan basin would become the ninth producing basin of India, the eighth by ONGC. This development comes close on the heels of the eighth Indian basin, the Bengal basin, dedicated to the nation in December 2020.

Exploratory well Hatta-3, in the Son valley sector of Madhya Pradesh in the Vindhyan Basin, was drilled to establish commercial potential through detailed testing to acquire reservoir-specific data.

On testing, the well-produced over 62,044 cubic meters per day of gas, thus confirming the production potential of the proterozoic basin for the first time in India.

The active exploration in the Vindhyan Basin began with acquiring seismic data in the late 1980s. The first well, Jabera-1, drilled in the basin in 1991, produced gas of around 2,000 cubic meters per day.

Over the next 25 years, ONGC drilled 26 exploratory wells in the Son and Chambal valley sector of the Vindhya Basin, notwithstanding 14 of them providing sub-commercial gas flows in the Son Valley.

“Finally, continued efforts have now paid off, the Vindhyan Basin is close to becoming the ninth producing Basin of India. ONGC is fully geared to consolidate this development. With belief in prospectivity, the company has already acquired five Blocks under OALP rounds on the same play trend,” the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said.

“ONGC is now working out various monetisation options for the gas viz. direct marketing to industries in the vicinity, cluster-based gas production through cascade systems, CNG bottling at well-head as the gas is of high calorific value, and transportation using available facilities,” it added.