Government owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) will erect a ‘technical laboratory’ for exploration and commercial production of Coal Bed Methane (CBM) gas at Balidih in Bokaro.
With an estimated investment of Rs 175 crore, this lab will come up and the Jharkhand Industrial Area Development Authority-JIADA has allotted 13 acres of land near Dalmia Cement Plant at Balidih Industrial Area for the purpose, informed Manoj Jaiswal Secretary JIADA (earlier known as BIADA).
ONGC is on a move to erect the country’s biggest Coal Bed Methane (CBM) project at Bokaro and they will invest Rs 823 crore to produce natural gas from coal seams of its Bokaro block in the current fiscal, said an official of ONGC CBM Division Bokaro.
ONGC has embarked on CBM to meet energy crisis and will dig 400 new wells including 15 in Prabatpur of Bokaro district in the coming years to increase the CBM production by 4,00,000 cubic meter in Jharkhand by 2020-21.
ONGC had won the Bokaro block in the first round of CBM block bidding in the year 2003, said the official. Besides this, ONGC is also operating the North Karanpura block and Raniganj North CBM block in West Bengal. The Jharia block is estimated to hold 85 billion cubic meters of gas reserves, North Karanpura 62 billion cubic meters, Bokaro 45 billion cubic meters and Raniganj North 43 billion cubic meters, said the official.
For the commercial production of CBM we have to go with new wells (400) in next four years (100 well each year) and for it ONGC has to acquire acres of land first for our projects.
Now ONGC is exploring 5000 cubic meter CBM gas per day from its Parbatput plant about 35 kms from Bokaro Steel City. Now the gas is sold to Kolkata-based firm. At present, CBM gas is being supplied through cylinders, but soon a pipeline will be laid at Parbatpur, connecting the wells to supply points, informed the official.