Sakhalin-1 Oil and Gas Project

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About:

The Sakhalin-1 oil and gas development project is located in the Okhotsk Sea, off the north-eastern coast of Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East.
It comprises three offshore fields namely Chayvo, Odoptu, and Arkutun-Dagi.
The Sakhalin-1 project is operated by Exxon Neftegas (ENL), a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil which holds a 30% participating interest. The other partners of the project are the Japanese consortium Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Company (SODECO, 30%), India’s state-owned ONGC Videsh (20%), and Russian oil company Rosneft (20%).
The Sakhalin 1 project is estimated to hold approximately 2.3 billion barrels of oil and 17.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) in recoverable reserves.

ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL):

OVL is a Miniratna Schedule “A” Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) of the Government of India and is the wholly owned subsidiary and overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC).
OVL comes under the administrative control of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
The primary business of ONGC Videsh is to prospect for oil and gas acreages outside India, including exploration, development and production of oil and gas.
ONGC Videsh is the second largest petroleum company of India, next only to its parent ONGC.ONGC Videsh produced about 27.3% of oil and 19.4% of oil and natural gas of India’s domestic production in 2021-22.

Q1) What is natural gas?

Natural gas is a mixture of gases which are rich in hydrocarbons. All these gases (methane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide etc) are naturally found in atmosphere. Natural gas reserves are deep inside the earth near other solid & liquid hydrocarbons beds like coal and crude oil.

Source: OVL retakes 20% stake in Sakhalin-1 oil, gas fields