Over 5cr litres of crude stolen from Cairn oilfield, 8 arrested

Police arrested eight people on Friday for allegedly stealing around 20,000 litres of crude oil from Cairn India’s oilfield in Barmer every day for several years.

Cairn India produces about 1.75 lakh barrels of oil per day from its Barmer oilfield, which is India’s largest onshore block. It confirmed the theft of about ₹5 crore litres of crude, and said it had filed a case. The eight arrested were mainly transporters and some staff of Cairn contractor companies. The role of some top officials was being investigated, police said.

According to police, the tanker operators were authorised for transporting water, but used to carry oil in two of the five compartments inside the nearly 40,000-litre tanker.

The accused, Sata Ram and Dharma Ram, were selling the crude to Gautam Singh Rajpurohit and Bhoor Singh Rajpurohit at a factory located around 12 km from the city.

Gautam Singh paid ₹7.50 per litre to the tanker owner and later sold the crude for ₹25 per litre, police said. The tanker owner kept ₹4 for himself and distributed the rest ₹3.50 among the staff posted at production site.

Barmer SP Gagandeep Singla said the tankers belonged to transport companies Narendra Road lines Ltd (NRL), a Gujaratbased firm, and Shree Mohangarh Construction Company (SMCC), a local entity.

At least 44 tankers were used for crude transportation a, of which 39 were used for theft, police said, adding that they have seized 33 tankers, 11 of NRL and 22 of SMCC. Based on the statement of the accused, police said that theft worth ₹3 lakh was taking place daily.

Police recovered around 3,500 litres of oil from the factory. On checking with Cairn, the company confirmed that it was crude, Singla said.

Later, police also traced and raided another factory in Barmer Gadan and found eight underground storage tankers and recovered 43,000 litres of crude.

A Cairn India official said apart from the state exchequer they had lost around ₹50 crore.

“... In case of Barmer, the calculation indicates that in a sale of crude of ₹100, Cairn’s profit is ₹18 while the union government and the state in total get ₹82,” he said.