State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s (ONGC) third attempt to get a partner to rescue the Deen Dayal gas field in the KG basin in Bay of Bengal has met with the same fate as previous efforts as it got no bids, sources said.

The tender offering stake to technical and financial partners in the Deen Dayal field, which ONGC had acquired from a Gujarat government firm for $1.2 billion, received no bids, two sources aware of the matter said.

ONGC on June 12 sought expression of interest from “global oil and gas companies with requisite technical expertise and financial strength to join as partner (with participative interest) for firming up a viable strategy” for the field, according to the tender document. Bids closed on September 12.

The field has produced negligible quantities of gas since ONGC in January 2017 acquired Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation’s (GSPC) 80 per cent interest in the KG-OSN-2001/3 block off the east coast of India.

The block contains the Deen Dayal West (DDW) gas/condensate field which was discovered by GSPC almost two decades back. The Gujarat government company had showcased the field as a promising prospect when it sold its stake to ONGC in order to cut its debt.

The field, which was initially said to hold up to 20 trillion cubic feet of in place gas reserves — by far the biggest in any deepsea field in the country — but later trimmed to a tenth, has proved to be tougher than anticipated.

“A total of seven development wells are drilled till date,” ONGC had said in the tender document.

“However, four wells which were completed did not yield good productivity as anticipated and performance was sub-optimal,” ONGC has said.

PTI