ONGC discovers 10 mt of oil in Assam

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has made reserve accretion of 10 million tonnes (mt) of oil in Assam, it said on Friday. This is the behemoth’s biggest discovery in the state in three years.

The area of discovery was at the wells in Sufayam and Dayalpur, in Jorhat district, and the company has already drilled to exploit this reserve. The two new wells produce around 50 tonnes of oil daily, taking the total daily production of the Jorhat asset from 350 tonnes to 400 tonnes.

“We are now putting enhanced focus on production besides continuing with our exploration activities. As soon as we make onshore discoveries of oil or gas, our target is to soon start production from them. For the first time in three years we have made reserve accretion in Assam of 10 mt. Within two months’ time we created facilities and put these two fields into production,” said Ved Prakash Mahawar, director (onshore) of ONGC.

Mahawar said the company would achieve the target set for the production in Assam in 2016-17 at 0.96 mt. “We will achieve 100 per cent target this year. Till now 98 per cent target achieved,” Mahawar said.

The company wishes to re-enter Nagaland and exploit the discovered reserves there. ONGC, Mahawar said, would however like to work out modalities with the Nagaland government as how to go ahead before entering the state again.

“We have already let known the ministry (Union ministry of petroleum and natural gas) that Nagaland has substantial reserves and it rests on the ministry how it puts those reserves into production mode,” he said. The company was present in the state till 1994 when it quit in the wake of violent militant activities.