NEW DELHI, OCT 11:  Crude oil and natural gas production in the country over the last four years of the current Five-Year Plan has been almost stagnant. The crude oil production during the period stood at around 33 million metric tonne, while gas production was about 31-32 billion cubic meters (bcm).

Presenting these facts before the Parliament Consultative Committee of the ministry of petroleum and natural gas on Wednesday, petroleum minister Murli Deora said there had been a few major oil and gas discoveries by state-owned exploration and production firms, ONGC and Oil India Ltd (OIL). The agenda of this meeting was exploration and production sector in India.

Some of the reasons for the stagnant oil and gas production include the natural decline in the ageing fields producing the fuels. Also, it will take about seven to eight years to develop the oil and gas discoveries announced by private and joint venture companies in the last two to three years.

On the status of major oil and gas development projects, Deora said Cairn Energy, which had discovered huge oil and gas reserves in Rajasthan, would be producing 6 million metric tonne of crude oil per annum from 2007-08 onwards, through development efforts of oil discoveries in Rajasthan.

An increase of 1.7 million standard cubic meters of gas production is likely to take place in the current year itself from the Tapti gas field of the joint venture consortium comprising ONGC, Reliance and British Gas.

Another 2.5 mmscmd increase in gas production is slated in 2007-08. “Thus with the scheduled completion of development plans, natural gas production from Tapti will be around 12 mmscmd from 2007-08 onwards,” the minister told the members.

Besides the Tapti field, an additional 1.3 mmscmd of natural gas is expected to be produced from the PY-1 field of the Hindustan Oil Exploration Company (HOEC) from 2007-08 onwards, following completion of scheduled development plan.

On gas production from Reliance Industries Limited's (RIL’s) KG offshore field, the minister said an additional 40 mmscmd of natural gas was likely to be produced from 2008-09 onwards..

The five discoveries announced by ONGC are, together, expected to yield about 15 mmscmd of gas in 2009-10, going up to 33 mmscmd in 2011-12. However, this increase in production will be offset by decline in gas production from the western offshore area, the minister informed.

He said efforts to enhance oil and gas discoveries from existing producing fields were also on. “ONGC has taken up 15 fields for this purpose at an estimated investment of Rs 10,000 crore,” he said. The incremental crude oil anticipated on account of this investment is about 120 million tonne up to 2030, half of which would be from the Mumbai High fields, he added.

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NISKAYUNA, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GE today announced it has successfully developed and delivered a 6 kW prototype of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) system to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)/National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) for testing as part of a multi-year research program under the Department’s Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA) Coal-Based Systems program.

The delivered prototype exceeds DOE’s key performance specifications for both efficiency and potential for low cost and represents a major step forward in providing the SOFC technology required for large scale, commercially viable SOFC products for power generation. The prototype achieved an efficiency of 49%, which is well above the minimum requirement of 35% set forth in the program. The development of this prototype is part of a 10-year, three-phase program with DOE/NETL to build a highly efficient, multi-megawatt SOFC-based power system operating on coal. This system has the potential to achieve dramatically reduced emissions and close to 50% efficiency from coal. This would far surpass the 35% efficiency that can be achieved in a typical conventional pulverized coal-fired power plant today.

“SOFCs represent one of the most promising fuel cell technologies for achieving unsurpassed efficiency and environmental performance in large scale power generation plants,” said Kelly Fletcher, Advanced Technology Leader, Sustainable Energy Programs, GE Global Research. “While significant technical challenges remain, the development of this prototype represents a demonstrable step toward meeting GE’s goal of making SOFC technology commercially viable. GE’s long-term objective is to make SOFC technology viable for large-scale power generation.

“GE’s partnership with DOE in this multi-year research effort is another example of the company’s commitment to addressing the world’s most pressing environmental and energy challenges through ecomagination,” Fletcher continued. “It also is a clear example of how government and the private sector can work together to effectively advance the development of new, sustainable energy technologies that will promote cleaner, more efficient and affordable energy solutions.”

Launched in May 2005, ecomagination is GE’s company-wide initiative to aggressively drive and bring to market new technologies that help our customers meet their most pressing environmental challenges. Under the initiative, GE has pledged to more than double its level of investment in the development of cleaner energy technologies, from $700 million to $1.5 billion over the next five years.

Because SOFCs provide a continuous flow of power, operate at high temperatures and have multi-fuel capabilities, they can greatly enhance energy efficiency in power generation. And since fuel cells are a virtually combustion- and NOx-free power source, they also can vastly improve environmental performance. SOFCs are part of GE’s eco-technology portfolio.

The delivery of a SOFC prototype continues GE's on-going fuel cell development work with the DOE. Since 2001, GE has been one of six industrial teams participating in DOE's SECA program. The program is a DOE initiative aimed at accelerating advanced technologies that will enable the commercialization of cost competitive SOFCs for clean and efficient power generation from a variety of fuels, including coal. Last year, GE was the first team to successfully complete Phase I.

As part of its partnership with DOE, GE will design an integrated gasification fuel cell (IGFC) system that incorporates a hybrid SOFC/gas turbine as the primary power generation unit and demonstrate a proof-of-concept system. Resolving the technical challenges associated with the development of large scale SOFC technology is a key objective of the program.

GE Global Research, the company’s centralized research organization, is leading the research program with DOE. Other research partners in the SECA Coal Based Systems program include the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, WA.

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