Geosciences

University of Houston and India to establish new energy-focused data center

Feb. 20, 2023

The data center will house a geoscience data repository with display capability and software to interpret key E&P data and extensive knowledge of India’s sedimentary basins and fields.

Offshore staff

HOUSTON — The University of Houston (UH) and the Directorate General Hydrocarbon (DGH), the technical arm of the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to establish the UH-DGH Data Center.

The data center will house a geoscience data repository with display capability and software to interpret key E&P data and extensive knowledge of India’s sedimentary basins and fields.

The aim of this five-year agreement is to provide reliable and high-quality information, including seismic, well, reservoir and production data, for R&D as well as to investors and companies based in the Greater Houston area and the Gulf Coast region to encourage commercial opportunities involving Indian offshore offerings.

Houston is home to more than 4,500 energy companies and a key oil and gas hub, and UH is a Tier One research university with globally renowned researchers.

The MoU helps strengthen the strategic partnership between the United States and India.

Latest offshore India highlights

Last month ONGC’s Sagar Samrat mobile offshore production unit (MOPU) started operating at the offshore WO-16 cluster of four marginal fields in the Arabian Sea. The location is about 40 km from the Mumbai High complex offshore western India in water depths of 75-80 m. As a recently converted MOPU,Sagar Samrat will handle up to 20,000 bbl/d day of crude oil, with a maximum export gas capacity of 2.36 MMcm/d.

Moreover, ONGC contracted two Shelf Drilling jackups in December 2022 for operations also in the offshore Mumbai High area. Compact Driller and Key Singapore are scheduled to start operations in second-quarter 2023.

That same month Searcher Seismic unveiled its East Coast India Rectified and Reprocessed 2D Dataset, following the announcement of the India Offshore Bid Round OALP9 2022/3. The round includes nine blocks in the Krishna Godavari, Mahanadi and Bengal basins in shallow water and deepwater offshore India, mostly unexplored.

In addition, Larsen & Toubro division L&T Energy Hydrocarbon will perform India’s first decommissioning program for offshore platforms. Under a contract awarded by Shell subsidiary British Gas Exploration and Production India Ltd. in late November 2022, the company will provide engineering, preparation, removal and transportation of five wellhead platforms and associated facilities at the Tapti Field offshore India’s west coast.

As for the renewables sector, the Danish Energy Agency and India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy published a conceptual plan in late November 2022 for 15 potential locations for offshore wind in India.

02.20.2023