Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has given a clearance to Cairn India for undertaking drilling works of 64 exploratory and appraisal wells in KG-OSN-2009/3 block in KG basin at Prakasam and Guntur districts of Andhra Pradesh.
The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) while according to environmental clearance set a few conditions along with other specific and general environmental conditions relevant to the project proposal.
Cairn India Limited has proposed for drilling of 55 exploratory and 11 appraisal wells in KG-OSN-2009/3 block in Offshore KG Basin.
The offshore block in the Bay of Bengal along the coast of Andhra Pradesh is spread over an area of about 1988 km. The block covers partly the offshore areas of Prakasam and Guntur districts.
Krishna-Godavari Basin is a peri-cratonic passive margin basin in India. It is spread across more than 50,000 square kilometres in the Krishna River and Godavari River basins in Andhra Pradesh. The site is known for the D-6 block where Reliance Industries discovered the biggest natural gas reserves in India in 2002.
KG inland and offshore basins have good prospects of tight oil and tight gas reserves from the conducted field studies. Most of the conventional wells drilled and operated have a shorter lifespan than envisaged life and with erratic production. This may be due to drilling of conventional wells in tight oil and gas fields without horizontal drilling in the shale rock formations and hydraulic fracturing.