Third Eye to help ONGC in oil hunt

OIL and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has set up 3-D virtual reality centre known as Third Eye at Mumbai and Panvel for real time dissemination and information of onshore and offshore applications. The state-of-the-art centre was inaugurated by Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Ram Naik.

ONGC chairman and Managing Director Subir Raha says the company plans to introduce three more such centres in Dehradun, Ahmedabad and Jorhat.

Set up with an investment of Rs 34.5 crore, these centres will be used for exploration and production activities, including surveillance of producing oil and gas fields.

The Third Eye will now help ONGC network all its centres together by parallel computing technologies for all major projects, Raha said.

"We are already having seven offshore survey ships collecting data, which will be interpreted in this centre... ONGC’s future finds of hundreds of million tonnes now depends on it", the CMD said.

The application software for this technology have been developed during last 4-5 years. Geoscientists and engineers have harnessed it for imaging of sub-surface, identification of prospects, planning of difficult drilling trajectories and designing of offshore platforms and process facilities.

The centre comprises of large graphic engine with high-end machines powered with computing capacity, large memory, disc capacity and large screen visualisation system. — PTI