India's ONGC Likely to Start Commercial Shale Drilling Next Year

India’s public sector energy company Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd (ONGC) aims to commence commercial drilling for shale gas next year, its chairman said on Friday.

“We hope to take up at least 10 wells for parameters this year and to start commercial drilling next year,” Sudhir Vasudeva told reporters, reported news agency Reuters.

ONGC and Oil India have identified 56 shale gas blocks which have potential to be explored, country oil minister Dharamendra Pradhan informed the parliament last month.

ONGC has zeroed in on 50 blocks and Oil India on six. 

These blocks are located in the states of Assam (7 blocks), Arunachal Pradesh (1 block), Gujarat (28 blocks), Rajasthan (1 block), Andhra Pradesh (10 blocks) and Tamil Nadu (9 blocks). 

ONGC has drilled one well where coring has been completed. In addition, ONGC has collected cores from another 7 wells. 

Last year, India gave a go ahead to the much awaited shale oil and gas policy boosting prospects of exploration of the unconventional gas in the country.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the proposal of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on the policy on exploration and exploitation of shale gas and oil by National Oil Companies (NOCs), namely ONGC and Oil India Limited, on acreages they already own. 

As per the policy, the NOCs will undertake a mandatory minimum work program in a fixed time frame for shale gas and oil exploration and exploitation, so that there is optimum accretion and development of shale gas and oil resources. 

According to U.S. Energy Information Administration India may have as much as 96 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of recoverable shale gas reserves.