The Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas Dr. M. Veerappa Moily has approved constitution of a Multi Organization Team (MOT) to carry out re-assessment of Hydrocarbon Resources of India in all its 26 sedimentary basins. The Exercise will cover all the 26 sedimentary basins of India. Resource assessment is required to be completed within 30 months. The Keshav Dev Malviya Institute of Petroleum Engineering (KDMIPE) of ONGC will act as leader with Director (Exploration) of ONGC as Chairman and Director (Exploration & Development) of Oil India Ltd (OIL) as Co-chairman. A National Level Committee headed Petroleum Secretary will monitor & review the progress of work periodically.

It may be recalled that during the course of implementation of pre-NELP (New Exploration Licensing Policy) and NELP rounds and other exploration and production activities, substantial geo-scientific data have been acquired and interpreted. New oil and gas fields have also been discovered by utilizing improved geological understanding and new technology. With the increase in exploration spread and quantum jump in availability of geo-scientific data generated under NELP there is a need to revisit the Hydrocarbon Resource assessment of India.

The last such exercise was carried out in 15 sedimentary basins, approximately two decades ago and is overdue for full scale revision in view of the vast amount of data collected since then. There is also an urgent need for the fresh estimation in the remaining eleven sedimentary basins as well, for which no hydrocarbon resources have been estimated so far.

Considering the fact that the job needs to be done in a focused and time bound manner, the Multi Organization Team have following terms of reference :

A. Terms of Reference:

i) Resource estimation exercise will be carried out for all the 26 sedimentary basins of India. The total sedimentary basin area is 3.14 million Sq. kms.

ii) Preparation of sedimentary basin and sub-basin wise portfolio of available technical data and indicating the future data requirement/generation in unexplored sedimentary basins/sub-basins for their Hydrocarbon resource assessment.

iii) Within the basins, comprising sub-basins and/or sectors, the hydrocarbon resource figures are to be worked out for smallest possible units within a basin.

iv) For basins with vertically stacked multiple petroleum systems, resource estimation is to be attempted separately for each petroleum system/source rock.

v) Preparation of detailed maps with exact delineation of basin/sub-basin boundaries & basin/sub-basin areas based on the latest available Geo-scientific data of all types.

vi) Review the present parameters used for categorization of basins and suggest changes, if needed, for re-categorization of basins.

B. Modalities

i) The work of hydrocarbon resource assessment will be carried out under the leadership of KDMIPE, Dehradun. Multiple work executions teams will be established for the purpose, as required.

ii) KDMIPE my engage expert bodies and consultants as required for the arrangement as per standard ONGC procedure.

iii) Since the Resource assessment of all the basins cannot be done simultaneously, the work execution teams will prioritize and draw timelines for completion schedule for each Basin, so as to complete the total exercise including report writing within a time frame of 30 months.

C. National Steering Committee

For effective monitoring, a National Steering Committee is constituted for periodic review of the work done by KDMIPE comprising the following:

i. Secretary, PNG, Chairman.

ii. DG, DGH.

iii. JS (E), MoPNG.

iv. Director (E) ONGC.

v. Director (E& D), OIL.

vi. Head (G & G), DGH, Noida.

vii. Head, KDMIPE, Dehradun-Convener

The National Steering Committee will meet every six months.

D. Multi Organization Team (MOT)

To ensure data confidentially and quality output in the desired time frame, a Multi Organization Team (MOT)) comprising of the following is constituted:-

i. Director (Expl) ONGC : Chairman

ii. Director (Expl & Dev) OIL : Co-Chairman

iii. Head, KDMIPE ONGC, Dehradun : Member

iv. Head, R&D OIL, Duliajan, Assam : Member

v. GM (G&G) DGH, Noida : Member

E. The process of Hydrocarbon resource estimation of different basins being sequential, there will be quarterly review meetings by MOT for assessing the progress. Comprehensive documentation in the form of various reports and maps will be generated. The detailed modality of generation of documents and maps will be decided by the Head, KDMIPE, Dehradun and Head (G&G), DGH, Noida. The MOT may meet at more frequent intervals, if required.

F. Geo-scientific data for the study

KDMIPE will utilize the geo-scientific data available with them and DGH for the propose of resource assessment. DGH will be responsible for providing all the resource assessment related data of NELP and pre-NELP blocks, operated by various E&P companies. Data confidentially will be maintained by KDMIPE.

G. Project Cost

The manpower for execution of work will be drawn from KDMIPE, ONGC, OIL and professional/expert bodies and consultants. KDMIPE will decide on need basis, about induction of experts and domain specialists and will also prepare the annual action plan and budget, in consultation with DGH and present the same to the National Steering Committee by 15th March of each year. The expenditure for the entire exercise will be borne by KDMIPE, Dehradun and reimbursed by DGH.

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RCJ

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