Sagar Samrat

Why is in news? Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri re-dedicates ONGC’s iconic Sagar Samrat as a Mobile Offshore Production Unit to the nation

Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Minister for Housing and Urban Development Shri Hardeep Singh Puri rededicated Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) iconic drilling rig Sagar Samrat, as a Mobile Offshore Production Unit (MOPU) on January 28, 2023 at a ceremony held on Sagar Samrat which is located 140-145 kilometres west of Mumbai.

The Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister urged that there is a need to introduce new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in the organization which are geared towards time-bound deliverables and efficiency. These KPIs need to focus on three important goals.

ONGC possess a large sedimentary basin acreage, which will go up even further in the coming days. It is imperative that the organisation make extra efforts to convert it’s ‘Yet to find’ acreage into Discovery fields, Discovery fields into Production assets and Production assets into Maximum Production assets.

Government of India intends to increase India's exploration acreage to 0.5 million sq. km. by 2025 and 1.0 million sq. km. by 2030, stated the Union Minister. He also said that the Government has been successful in reducing the ‘No Go' area by 99%, thereby making available an additional approx. 1 million Sq.km. of India's EEZ for exploration.

The Sagar Samrat, commissioned in 1973, 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 Mumbai Offshore region of Arabian Sea, then called the Bombay High.

Sagar Samrat turned 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 (MOPU).

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 meters per day.