Page 41 - Plastics News June 2021

Business news

Government to auction major oil, Wartsila to set up 30-MW power

gas fields of ONGC, OIL plant for Oil India in Assam

he government will auction unmonetised large oil and artsila on Tuesday said it has won an award from
Tgas fields of state-owned ONGC and OIL to boost the WOil India (OIL) to set up a 30 megawatt (MW)
country's hydrocarbon production, Petroleum Minister power plant in Assam, once operational it will be one of
Dharmendra Pradhan said earlir this month. Speaking the main sources of power for OIL’s facility at Duliajan,
on the launch of the third round of auction of small which does not have connection to the grid.The power
discovered fields, he said companies cannot indefinitely sit plant is scheduled to be commissioned in November
on resources they may have discovered. These resources 2022. The company won this project through the
actually belong to the nation and they will be monetised
by bidding them out to interested entities, he said.As
many as 32 oil and gas blocks with 75 discoveries have
been offered in the Discovered Small Field (DSF) round-
III. These small and marginal fields were discovered by
state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC)
and Oil India Ltd (OIL) but they were not economically
viable to be developed due to the fiscal regime and their
small size. Under DSF, liberal terms including pricing and
marketing freedom are offered, making them viable. international competitive bidding process. The project
"There will be no DSF next time. Next time, it will be a is awarded under a full engineering, procurement,
'major' round (auction of large fields)," Mr. Pradhan said. and construction contract. This plant will form the
He said the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), backbone of Oil India’s power supply to the surrounding
the oil ministry's technical arm, has the "full mandate" to area, facilities and township. The Wartsila solution,
identify unmonetised major fields that could be offered backed with our long-term maintenance agreement,
for bidding. "Resources don't belong to a company. They will enable extremely high plant availability to deliver
a thoroughly reliable electricity supply,” said Henri
van Boxtel, energy business director, South Asia,
Wärtsilä. According to the company, the plant will cater
power to the LPG bottling cum extraction facility, gas
gathering station, the entire OIL township and other
critical loads. Moreover, this plant will operate with
3 Wärtsilä W20V34SG gas engines running on natural
gas fuel from OIL’s captive gas fields. Since, there can
be variations in the quality of the gas supply from
these fields, the company will provide a continuous
gas analyser system which will automatically tune
the engines as per fuel quality. Also, the operational
reliability and plant availability will be supported by a
belong to the nation and the government. They cannot
lie with a company indefinitely. If somebody cannot multi-year maintenance agreement between the two
monetise them, we will have to bring a new regime," he organisations. In India since the early 1980s, Wärtsilä
has contributed immensely to the Power segment of
said. The statement comes weeks after his ministry said the country. The company has 35 years of experience
India's largest oil and gas producer ONGC to sell a stake in providing complete lifecycle power solutions for
in producing oil fields such as Ratna R-Series in western the Indian Marine and Energy markets. It has over 500
offshore to private firms and get foreign partners in KG employees in India and has delivered around 250 power
basin gas fields. plants to India with an installed base of over 3500 MW.

41 June 2021 Plastics News