For years ONGC has struggled with some of its fields located in deep-sea or high-pressure or high-temperature areas, which require special skills and advanced technology to develop, leading to delays or suboptimal outcome. The company is now looking for allies that can help plug such gaps.
ONGC has now written to 10 oil companies, seeking to jointly explore and develop discoveries in the KG Basin as well as other tough terrains, as per people aware of the matter.
The companies are Saudi Aramco, Shell, Total, ENI of Italy, PTT Exploration and Production of Thailand, Petronas of Malaysia, Kuwait Oil, Tullow Oil of UK, Equinor of Norway, Occidental Petroleum, Chevron, Kosmos Energy, and Apache Corp of the US, one of these people said.
ONGC already has a preliminary agreement with ExxonMobil, the largest US oil company, for joint exploration. It recently wrote to ExxonMobil for an equity partnership in some of its exploration blocks.
“Oil majors can send their teams to study the data before taking a call. ONGC has opened the data room for the KG Basin. Data will be made available for other blocks as well,” he said. Evaluation of geological data will be the first step in the long process of a possible partnership. Most oil majors have stayed away from the Indian upstream sector despite several policy changes in recent years.
