Senior geologists say there are signs of oil & gas reserves in the deep sea near Kutch.
After long search for petroleum in the Kutch region, exploring agencies have found clear ‘signs’ of the presence of oil and gas deep inside the sea off the Indian coast. As and when this is confirmed by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) — the oil regulator which confirms the discovery of oil in the country — these reserves can lead to an offshore oil and gas field like Bombay High.
Dr SK Biswas, retired director of KDM Institute of Petroleum Exploration, Dehradun, and emeritus scientist of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) shared these findings during his visit to Gandhinagar.
Dr Biswas has worked for 50 years in the field of petroleum exploration and had spent significant time in his career the exploration work in the Kutch region. “We have done detailed mapping of Kutch region for 15 years and found a possible source of ‘mature generation’ that lies offshore and not onshore,” he said. These oil & gas reserves are not in the Gulf of Kutch but deep inside the sea and it is in Indian territorial waters.
“This is a recent discovery. The Bombay offshore region is a oil ‘prone’ area but we could not find the same in Kerala offshore. The Kutch offshore is the next area where oil has started coming out”, he said.
He said, “however, an economically viable deposit has not been found yet. It is sub-economic deposit at present. But oil reserves are definitely there,” said Dr Biswas.
Explaining the term ‘sub-economic’ as used in petroleum exploration, he said, “Sub-economic is a relative term. It is calculated in terms of today’s operational cost of extracting oil and the value of reserves in the area. If the operational cost can be decreased, it could be economical,” he said.
He also said that the total volume of reserves cannot be ascertained yet because the estimation work is still going on. Dr BK Rastogi, director general of ISR, also confirmed the possibility of oil in the Kutch region. “There are oil fields in the offshore regions of Kutch. There is prospect of oil near Mundra area in the sea. There are possibilities of oil under the old rocks of Mesozoic Era, which are down below the tertiary age rocks,” he said.
Sources in the Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) have also confirmed oil and gas presence in the Kutch region. “It cannot be called ‘discovery’ but yes there are ‘finds’ of oil and gas in the Kutch region. Now these finds may or may not lead to the discovery of oil,” a source said.
Incidentally, the website of DGH also confirms the findings. The website says: “. Exploratory efforts have led to the discovery of oil and gas in the offshore part of the Kutch Basin.”
Kutch has attracted prospectors earlier too
Rann of Kutch has always attracted the ONGC and geologists as they believe region is sitting on a huge oil reserve. DNA had previously reported (see scrap) that ONGC had sought permission to conduct a 2D seismic survey in a 158-sq km area within the Narayan Sarovar wildlife sanctuary, which is quite close to the Rann. Proposal itself was sufficient indication of the presence of oil in the region.
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