Brazil’s national oil company -- Petrobras has decided quit Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) prolific gas discovery block in the KG basin.
ONGC officials said that the exit of Petrobras from the discovery could well pave way for Royal Dutch company Shell or BP plc filling in the gap.
Petrobras is keen on offloading its 15 per cent stake in KG-DWN-98/2 to ONGC as it wants to concentrate on developing massive oil and gas finds back home. Shell and BP plc have expressed interest in taking the stake in the block that sits next to Reliance Industries’ giant KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block off the east coast.
Shell has offered technology to convert natural gas into liquid (liquefied natural gas) at a floating offshore facility at the deep sea and then transporting the fuel in ships to the shore. BP, on the other hand, has offered the conventional technology of producing gas at an offshore platform and then transporting it to land through under-sea pipelines.
