Cairn India has begun oil production from Mangala Oil Fields in Barmer, Rajasthan. It is one of the biggest onshore oil discoveries in India. The first consignment of oil was evacuated by trucking to the Gujarat Coast for onward transport to MRPL, a government nominated buyer using heated crude oil tanker.
Mangala, along-with Bhagyam and Aishwariya, is expected to reach peak production of about 175,000 barrels of oil per day over next few years.
India, Asia’s third-largest oil consumer, currently imports more than 2 million barrels of oil per day, accounting for more than 75 percent of its crude oil requirements. At this point the oil production from the Rajasthan field would account for over 20% of the country’s domestic oil production.
Some Facts about Oil Fields in Rajasthan
1 – Initial volumes of crude will be produced through the first processing train which has a capacity of 30,000 barrels and production ramp up will continue until all four processing trains, with a total capacity of 205,000 bopd, are built and installed by 2011.
2 – The Rajasthan resource base has continually grown since the discovery of Mangala in 2004 – a total of 25 discoveries have already been made – the focus being to realise the full potential of the Barmer Basin in the coming years.
3 – The total acreage under long term contract is 3,111 km2 spread across the districts of Barmer and Jalore.
4 – 16,000 workers are currently involved in the construction activities -5,000 on the pipeline and 11,000 on the MPT.
5 – Crude production from the Rajasthan fields will generate revenues of Rs. 36,000 crore ($7.6 Billion) in the form of royalties to the State Government of Rajasthan over the life of the project, while the Government of India will earn Rs. 46,000 crore ($9.5 Billion) as profit petroleum, assuming crude oil prices of $50 a barrel.
6 – The world’s longest heated and insulated crude oil pipeline is being built by Cairn from the MPT to the Gujarat coast – length of 670 kilometres – giving access to more than 75% of India’s refining capacity – the first phase is targeted for completion by the end of 2009.
