ONGC to bring smaller fracking units in Texas to India

 The Dollar Business Bureau To enhance its in-house fracturing capacity and meet its additional work plan, the Oil Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is in the process of acquiring more fracking units and likely to bring in smaller fracking companies in Texas to India, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said in an official release on Wednesday. The Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendar Pradhan, said that the ONGC carries out frack jobs in nearly 120-140 wells every year by utilizing its existing equipment. And, to meet immediate additional fracking demand and attract more foreign companies to India, the ONGC has also organized a road show in Calgary in April 2015. Speaking on the natural gas production in the country during 2014-15 and 2017-18, the minister said that the availability of natural gas varies depending on the internal consumption and technical flaring of natural gas. At present, the normative gas requirement for power sector at 70/75 % Plant Load Factor (PLF) is around 81.5 Million Metric Standard Cubic Meter Per Day (MMSCMD). But, after the commissioning of 5449 MW of gas-based power generation capacity, the normative requirement of gas would be around 102.90 MMSCMD, he added. Informing that the current requirement of natural gas for the fertilizer sector is at 49.321 MMSCMD, the minister said this would increase by 14.4 MMSCMD by the end of 2017-18. The government has taken various steps to improve gas exploration and production in the country. These measures include intensification of domestic exploration and production through New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), R&D in case of gas hydrate resources, import of LNG, exploring possibility of transnational gas pipelines, exploration in the mining lease area, and acquisition of overseas oil and gas assets, the minister said. Through the National Gas Grid, the government is also making efforts to remove regional imbalance with regard to access of natural gas and clean and green fuel, connect gas sources to major demand centres, development of gas distribution networks in various cities for supply of CNG and PNG, among others, he added.      

May 13, 2015 | 7:22 pm IST.