Cairn makes three more oil discoveries in Rajasthan

Drilling of a oil well in progress at a field of Cairn India in Rajasthan. File photo

The Barmer basin in Rajasthan continued its prolific run with Cairn India striking gold with three new oil discoveries in the region.

With these three new discoveries, Cairn took the total number of discoveries made by it in the RJ-ON-90/1 block of the Barmer basin to 36.

“This is a significant discovery, in view of its proximity to the Mangala oil field and fast track appraisal is planned to facilitate rapid commercialization of this discovery,” the company said in a statement.

The block is operated by Cairn India—a subsidiary of Anil Agarwal’s London-based Vedanta Resources— with state-run ONGC holding a 30 percent stake in it.

With the three new discoveries, Cairn India would hope to its production target of 300,000 barrels per day by the end of 2016-17 from the existing 185,000 barrels per day.

The company, which saw its stock gain by about 3 percent with the news of the discovery, also announced an interim cash dividend of Rs. 5 per equity share of Rs.10 face value.

The Barmer or Rajasthan Basin, part of the Thar desert, forms the eastern flank of the Indus geo-syncline and comprises the sedimentary tract to the west and northwest of Aravalis up to the Indo-Pakistan border.

The Cambrian age basin extends over an area of 1,26,000 Sq. km and the Barmer part of it is believed to contain about 3.6 billion barrels of oil, of which 1 billion barrels are potentially recoverable.