ONGC detects oil leak off Mumbai coast

An oil spill around a mile long has leaked from a pipeline some 80 kilometres off the Mumbai coast and could mean a loss of about 25,000 barrels, state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp said on Friday.                                           

Oil Secretary S Sundareshan said the leakage should be plugged soon.                                           

"The initial assessment of the extent of the oil spill is about one mile long," ONGC said in a statement.                                           

A loss of 25,000 barrels would be just over 10% of daily production of 212,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the pipeline, which serves the Mumbai High field.           

ONGC said the leak was in its Mumbai Uran Trunk (MUT) pipeline and that oil and gas output from Mumbai High was being diverted to the ICP-Heera Uran Trunk (HUT) line.                                           

The leak was detected at around 0845 local time (0315 GMT) and ONGC said in a statement production should be lost only for about three hours. 

Shares in ONGC fell after the news and were down 1.98% to Rs1,111 by 0731 GMT in a Mumbai market which was 0.25% lower.                                           

ONGC said it was sending vessels to the site to ascertain the extent of leakage to contain it and repair the pipeline.