ONGC find uranium traces in Gujarat, Rajasthan, AP

The Oil and Natural Gas Company (ONGC) has spotted traces of uranium in its existing wells in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. Chairman and managing director of ONGC RS Sharma said this on the sidelines of golden jubilee celebration event of the company’s first oil well at Lunej in Gujarat.The board has given a go-ahead to the company’s proposed joint venture with Uranium Corporation of India for uranium exploration and we will soon sign an agreement,” Sharma said. The 50:50 joint venture company will utilise data from ONGC’s existing log of hydrocarbons which bears traces of uranium. Talking about the its upcoming ONGC Petro Additions Ltd (OPaL) project at Dahej, the chairman said that two consortiums have been zeroed in for the dual-feed cracker unit estimated to cost over Rs 6,000 crore with a capacity of about 11 lakh tones per annum (TPA).“The dual feed cracker unit will be ONGC’s largest construction contract till date,” said A K Balyan, director (HR) of ONGC. The rising input cost could see the cracker unit cost going well over Rs 7-8,000 crore, sources in the company said. Companies like GAIL and Petronet LNG have already picked 10 per cent and 5 per cent stake respectively in the project, sources said.