Project Profile
Value: US$140 million
Start-up Month: August
Start-up Year: 2012
Location: Block CY-OS-90/1, Cauvery Basin
Current Production: 3,000 barrels of oil per day
Water Depth: 40-400m
Area: 81 km2
The PY-3 field is located off the East Coast of India 80km south of Pondicherry in water depths of between 40m and 400m. The Cauvery basin was developed in the late Jurassic/early Cretaceous period and straddles the present-day east coast of India.
The licence, which covers 81km2, produces oil of high quality light crude (49° API). The field was developed using floating production facilities and subsea wellheads, a first for an offshore field in India.
The facility at PY-3 consists of the floating production unit, Tahara, and a 65,000 DWT tanker, Endeavor, which acts as a floating storage and offloading unit. There are four sub-sea wells tied back to Tahara. Tahara has a three-stage crude oil separation system, with the first two stages being three-phase separators and the third stage a two-phase separator. Actual liquid processing capacity on Tahara is 20,000 stbd with 17 MMscfd of gas handling capacity.
The field currently produces associated gas in the range of 3.5 MMscfd. This produced gas is used as fuel gas with excess gas being flared. The stabilised crude oil is pumped from Tahara to Endeavor for storage and offloading to shuttle tankers. Crude oil from the PY-3 field is sold to CPCL at its refinery in Nagapattinam, approximately 70 km south of the PY-3 field.
The PY-3 offshore oilfield was discovered on licence CY-0S 90/1 by ONGC in 1988 and, as a result of the development programme instituted by HEPI, was brought into production in November 1997.
Operators:
Hardy Oil & Gas plc: Operator with 18% interest
ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation): 40% interest
Hindustan Oil Exploration: 21% interest
Tata Petrodyne: 21% interest