Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri rededicates ONGC’s iconic drilling rig Sagar Samrat as a mobile offshore production unit
Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Housing and Urban Development, Hardeep Singh Puri rededicated Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) iconic drilling rig Sagar Samrat, as a Mobile Offshore Production Unit (MOPU) at a ceremony held on Sagar Samrat Yesterday (28 Jan).
The Minister met the ONGC employees who manned the Sagar Samrat as a drilling rig and also the team which worked on converting it to a MOPU. The Minister highlighted how Sagar Samrat is a testimony of India’s vision of producing its own oil when it was globally labelled as “barren” in terms of hydrocarbon exploration.
The Minister stated that in harnessing India’s most prominent and prolific oilfield, ONGC has consistently committed itself to the pursuit of knowledge, continued excellence and the willingness to evolve technologically. The minister extolled them saying that they were the Energy Soldiers whose efforts add strength to the energy revolution happening in India now. He said they were the crew that is driving India’s energy transformation. Your efforts fuel our journey towards realizing our national energy goals, the minister added.
He said that India’s energy demand is expected to grow at about 3 per cent per annum by 2040, compared to the global rate of one per cent. Twenty five per cent of the global energy growth between 2020 and 2040 is going to come from India due to our fast-growing economy and demographic dividend. The Minister stated that ONGC possesses a large sedimentary basin acreage, which will go up even further in the coming days.
Commissioned in 1973, Sagar Samrat was built at the Mitsubishi yard in Japan and set sail from Hiroshima on 3 April 1973. It drilled ONGC’s first Offshore well in 1974 in the Mumbai Offshore region of the Arabian Sea, then called the Bombay High. Sagar Samrat turned the tides of India’s oil fortune by putting it on the global oil map.
In 32 years, Sagar Samrat has drilled almost 125 wells and has been involved with 14 key offshore oil and gas discoveries in India. Initially a jack-up drilling rig, Sagar Samrat has now been converted into a Mobile Offshore Production Unit. This MOPU Sagar Samrat commenced production on 23 December 2022. The vessel is presently deployed at Western Offshore (WO)-16 field, located 140-145 kilometres west of Mumbai. The MOPU is designed to handle 20,000 barrels per day of crude oil and has a maximum export gas capacity of 2.36 million cubic metres per day.
ONGC जीतेगा तो इंडिया 🇮🇳 जीतेगा!
Very happy to interact with ONGCians & their families at an event to dedicate Sagar Samrat Mobile Offshore Production Unit to the Nation, in Mumbai today!
Expressed my gratitude on behalf of the nation for their immense hard work & sacrifices. pic.twitter.com/whTNkFyAUo— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) January 28, 2023
