By IANS,
Gandhinagar : Announcing the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation’s discovery of more than 20 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas in the Krishna-Godavari Basin (Deendayal Block), Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi Thursday said it was a proud day for the state.
“I wanted to go personally and congratulate the GSPC’s team for their big breakthrough and I therefore came here with my cabinet ministers,” Modi said.
He was speaking through video conferencing from Andhra Pradesh’s KG-22 basin to the media at the GSPC Bhavan here.
Modi said the central government buys gas from producers at $4 to $4.5 while the market price is $18. “Today our find at KG-22 is worth Rs.4 lakh crore (Rs.40 trillion) or $100 billion,” he said.
The GSPC team had slogged for three years in the middle of the sea digging over 6 km deep at 450 degrees F and under high pressure to achieve this feat. “By god’s grace the result has been satisfying. I congratulate all the team members,” he said.
Modi said that GSPC, a firm promoted by the state government, was allotted the KG exploration block under the NELP-III along with Jubilant Enpro Ltd and Geo Global Resources.
The block covers an area of 1,850 sq km on the K-G basin in Andhra Pradesh and GSPC as an operator has 80 percent participating interest. GSPC, which spent Rs.20 billion on drilling 10 wells in a 120 sq km offshore area so far, plans to dig five more wells. It had began drilling in July 2004 after acquiring 3-D seismic data, he said.
GSPC has put up 1,200 km of gas grid covering 14 districts of Gujarat at a cost of Rs.30 billion transporting about 18 MMSCMD of gas. It caters to 30 major industrial and power sector consumers and 300 small and medium industries apart from 250,000 domestic customers.