Why India's largest energy producer is hoping to find oil where others have failed for 30 years
It was one of those moments that make oil exploration in the deep seas such an unpredictable business. Early in September, a team of engineers from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and its contractor TransOcean, the world’s largest offshore drilling company, watched in horror as a live camera feed showed mud gushing out vertically from a well they had been drilling for the past 35 days. The feed, captured by a remotely operated vehicle two kilometres below the water surface, showed that something was drastically wrong. The blowout preventor, an essential piece of equipment on every oil well that regulates pressure to ensure safety, had failed.
ONGC exploration director D.K. Pande says despite all the activity by others in Kerala-Konkan, the area where they are now drilling is completely unexplored. “Only one deep water well has been drilled in Kerala Konkan before, and it was in a completely different region where we had reservoirs without shale. To ensure a reservoir and a trap, we need a combination of sand and shale. These conditions exist in the areas where we’re drilling,” he says.
(This story appears in the 25 September, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)