Gandhinagar

Gujarat government today said in the Legislative Assembly that it was facing several technical difficulties in its oil and gas exploration project in Krishna-Godawari basin, leading to delay in start of commercial production.

The state-run Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) has an exploration block in the KG basin in Andhra Pradesh.

During the question hour, Joitabhai Patel, Congress MLA from Dhanera asked the energy and petroleum minister Saurabh Patel about the progress in the exploration and reasons for delay in commencement of commercial production of gas by GSPC.

In his written answer, Patel said there were several problems. KG basin is a deep sea block, which creates many technical challenges for oil exploration at a very high temperature and pressure, he said.

The block has a temperature of 400 degree Fahrenheit (204 degree Celsius) and pressure of 12,000 pounds per square inch (PSI) at the bottom, and the engineering work in these circumstances takes more time, he said.

Being an off-shore block, there were further geographical problems and as a result the production was yet to start, the minister said.

Last month the Gujarat government had stated in the Assembly that it had spent Rs 2,847.25 crore on exploration in KG basin in the last two years.

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