Essar Oil, a subsidiary of Essar Energy, has set a roadmap to invest an additional Rs 2,000 crore at its coal bed methane (CBM) block in Ranigunj.
“We have already committed Rs 800 crore investment to the Raniganj project and are planning to invest another Rs 2000 crore ($400 million) going forward for the future work, for which we have applied for the requisite approvals including environmental clearance,” said Iftikhar Nasir, Chief Executive Officer – exploration and production, Essar Energy.
The project is envisaged to have 500 wells in the block, while it got permission to 73 vertical and upto four support wells. On the other hand the final clearance from the ministry of environment and forests for phase III for the project is set to be in place by September this year. On an experimental basis, the firm is producing about 25,000 standard cubic meters per day (scmd) from 15 to 20 in Ranigunj.
“We are currently supplying to local customer like GI and Mackeil Ispat & Forging Ltd in small quantities 20,000 scmd,” he added. The West Bengal government was also planning to tie up with Essar to run buses of state transport corporations — Calcutta State Transport Corporation ( CSTC), South Bengal State Transport Corporation (SBSTC), North Bengal State Transport Corporation (NBSTC), West Bengal Surface Transport Corporation (WBSTC) and Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC) – using coal bed methane.
The plan was to bring about 50 buses under the project. The firm was already in talks with Indian Oil to put in place a franchise agreement that will enable access to their pump facility at the bus depots to convert CBM into Compressed natural gas (CNG ), which can be used to run buses.
When asked about this, Nasir said, “We have had initial discussion with various oil companies, and prime-facie it appears to be feasible to bring CNG to Kolkata from Durgapur for running the pilot project for converting State Transport buses. Details of logistics and other infrastructure required are being worked out.”
Recently, the total proven and probable reserves at Raniganj was up by 113 billion cubic feet (bcf) gross, or 18.8 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe). Essar is one of the leading CBM players in the country 2,733 square kilo metre of acreage and more than 10 tcf of reserves across five blocks.