Cairn Lanka Private Limited, the Sri Lankan subsidiary of Cairn India, plans to begin seismic data acquisition in the Mannar basin by the later part of 2009.
Cairn has been developing its interests in this part of the world for more than a decade and the company is one of the largest private exploration and production (E&P) companies in India. Of the 13 blocks in India and Sri Lanka, Ravva and Cambay in India are under production, while Rajasthan is under development and the remaining under various stages of exploration, said official sources here.
Cairn Lanka was granted the licence last October by the Sri Lankan government to explore for oil and gas in its Mannar block. The Block SL 2007-01-001 which is offshore north-west Sri Lanka and covers approximately 3,000 Km2 in water depths of 200 metres to 1,800 metres was awarded to E&P company in the recent Sri Lanka bid round. The work programme includes proposals to acquire 5,000 km of 2D, 1,000 km2 of 3D seismic and drill three wells in the initial three years of the eight-year exploration period.
The Mannar basin is a frontier petroleum province that is yet to be explored. Cairn Lanka will invest in the region in exploring the block by applying the best in class technologies and industry practices in the search to establish whether commercial quantities of hydrocarbons can be found.
In India, Cairn is gearing to start production operation from its Mangala field, the largest oil discovery in India since 1985 and is progressing well on the activities in Rajasthan block. Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwariya together underpin a development scenario that has the potential to generate peak plateau production of 175,000 bpd or 20% of India’s present domestic crude production by 2010.
Rajasthan, poised to become the next energy hub of in the subcontinent, is set to have another first to its credit. In order to evacuate oil from Rajasthan, Cairn India is involved in building a heated pipeline from the Mangala Process Terminal (MPT) at Barmer to a coastal location near Salaya in Gujarat, the sources added.
This 600 km, 24-inch diameter, oil pipeline is India’s first and the world’s longest pipeline to feature insulation and heating. A minimum of 32 intermediate power and heating stations, Skin Effect Heat Management System (SEHMS), are being built along the length of the pipeline.
??The year 2009 is a very exciting year for the company. The year will witness a series of remarkable events of which the most important is the commitment by the Cairn team to deliver first oil from Rajasthan by the third quarter of 2009. We also hope to start the 3D study in Mannar Block to obtain detailed data of possible oil reserves,?? the sources said.