Cairn Oil & Gas Celebrates 10 years of Prolific Production from Barmer, Rajasthan

NEW DELHI:
Cairn Oil & Gas, a vertical of Vedanta Limited, and India’s largest private oil and gas exploration and production company, today celebrated 10 years of Mangala oil field operations. The “first oil” from Mangala field, India’s largest oil find in the last 30 years, was discovered on 29 August 2009. Since then, this field alone has contributed 414 million barrels of crude to India, while Rajasthan state has cumulatively produced 532 million barrels and contributed a royalty of Rs 33,500 crore to the Government of Rajasthan.

The company has been successful in maximising the potential of the Rajasthan block through cutting-edge technologies, digitalisation, superior human capital, and excellence in project execution. Producer wells have benefitted from the use of predictive analysis, injection of water and polymers, which happened through sand-scouring and chemical methods.

Mangala is where Cairn successfully deployed Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) using polymer flooding, having built the world’s largest central polymer facility. It has since successfully piloted Alkaline Surfactant Polymer (ASP) EOR in the field. Many other innovations and technologies like horizontal wells, rapid rigs, and the single largest installation of jet pumps in the world have been instrumental, as have in-house integration of production, power fluid network systems, and Digital Oil Fields (DOF), further helping optimise production. In addition, Mangala is also where the company has continued innovation in operational safety with technologies like smart well integrity and predictive analysis.

The discovery and subsequent production of crude oil from the region has transformed Barmer from being one of the most backward, to one of the most prosperous districts in the country over the last decade. The district’s per capita income has increased by ~650 percent to become highest among all 33 districts of Rajasthan, and higher than the national average.

In addition to the direct impact that the business had has on the region, Cairn’s community interventions in the areas of healthcare, drinking water and sanitation, children’s wellbeing and education, and livelihood generation (natural resource management, arid-land farming, animal husbandry, skill development) have brought about a sea change in the lives of people and communities in and around Barmer. Last year alone, Cairn CSR initiatives touched the lives of close to 16 lakh people, almost 70 percent of the population across Cairn locations, significantly in Rajasthan.

Ajay Kumar Dixit, CEO, Cairn Oil & Gas, Vedanta Limited, said, “The last decade has been revolutionary for Indian oil and gas industry owing to the discovery and production of crude from the Mangala field. It remains the largest discovery in the last three decades in India. The discovery of Mangala field has helped to bring in the change the socio-economic landscape of Barmer. Even after a decade, the field continues to be promising, and with our planned investments, we aim to increase production further by realising its full potential.”

Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwariya fields, the three major discoveries in the Rajasthan block, together have gross hydrocarbons in place of about 2.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Cairn has further planned investments worth $3.2 billion towards enhancing production from its existing fields, significantly in Rajasthan.