OREANDA-NEWS. March 4, 2011. State-run ONGC has been the whipping boy of policymakers and analysts whenever a comparison is done with its private sector peers on the ability to find oil. But true to its status, the flagship explorer last week proved them wrong by making a strike in an acreage where stalwarts such as British Gas, Canada’s Hardy, Enron and Valco failed to hit pay dirt. ONGC made the discovery in the second Aliabet well drilled in the concession identified as CB-OSN-2003/1 in the Cambay basin of Gujarat. Foreign explorers had explored the acreage, then identified as CB-OS-1, without success before auction of blocks started in 1999-2000.

The last time luck had smiled on an explorer in a similar fashion was in the oilfields of Barmer in Rajasthan. After exploring the area for six years, Anglo-Dutch Shell gave up hopes and sold its rights to Scottish explorer Cairn Energy for just USD 2 million in 1998-2002. Two years later, Cairn made the biggest onland oil discovery of that decade there.

 During testing, ONGC’s Cambay discovery well flowed gas at the rate of 77,167 cubic metre per day and 11 cubic metre per day of condensate. The company has two more zones to test and sources expect them to increase the size of the discovery. An ONGC statement, released after a board meeting on Friday, had listed this discovery among three that the company had notified. The other two finds were made in the Krishna-Godavari onland and offshore basins.