Sagar Samrat unit of ONGC commences oil & gas production in Arabian Sea

New Delhi: State-owned ONGC's vintage offshore drilling rig 'Sagar Samrat' has a new role. It will now act as a mobile production unit that started doing its job last month, the company said on Tuesday. The rig, which had outlived its sell-by date, was refurbished into a mobile offshore production unit (MOPU), capable of bringing oil and gas found below the seabed to surface.

Sagar Samrat commissioned on Dec 23 to handle 20,000 barrels per day of crude oil

Sagar Samrat MOPU, which was commissioned on December 23 last year, will handle up to 20,000 barrels per day of crude oil, with a maximum export gas capacity of 2.36 million cubic metres per day and is expected to add 6,000 barrels per day of oil to ONGC's production in the coming days.

"The first oil from the WO-16 cluster flowed into the processing system of MOPU and was dispatched to onshore terminal," Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) said in a statement. WO-16 is a cluster of four marginal fields in the Arabian Sea at a water depth of 75-80 metres and 130 kilometers from Mumbai.

"Since no nearby facility exists to produce from this field, it was planned to install a MOPU for production, processing and transportation of oil and gas from WO-16 cluster," it said.

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Sagar Samrat conversion is one of the most complex projects executed by ONGC

The project to convert jack-up rig Sagar Samrat into a MOPU was awarded to a consortium of Mercator Oil and Gas Ltd, Mercator Offshore (P) Ltd and Gulf Piping Company (GPC) on November 17, 2011.

"After several hurdles like the legal challenges and Covid-19, the MOPU was transported to India, on a heavy lift vessel. Post statutory clearances, it was successfully installed close to the WO-16 wellhead platform on April 16, 2022," the statement said.

The Sagar Samrat conversion is one of the most complex projects executed by ONGC.

"The MOPU stands tall in the Arabian Sea, as a testimony, to narrate the stories of several tough decisions taken during its execution and the excellent stakeholder consultation by ONGC which eventually yielded results," it added.

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