A consortium of Oilex of Australia, Videocon Industries, GAIL, Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) have begun drilling in the exploration block they had won in Oman."The Sarha-1 exploration well was spudded on December 31, 2007. The well is the first of three exploration wells, which will be drilled in Block-56 using the Abraj Rig 2004," Oilex said in a statement here.The well will be drilled in 18 days to a total depth of 1,650 metres.The consortium was awarded Block-56 in July 2006. "To date, a significant volume of existing seismic data has been reprocessed and during 2007 a large programme of new 2D seismic data was acquired," it said.On the basis of the reprocessed data and existing 3D seismic surveys in the western part of the block, a number of exploration well locations were developed for drilling during 2008. The first of these wells is Sarha-1, located on the eastern flank of the South Oman Salt Basin adjacent to several producing fields.Oilex, Videocon and GAIL hold 25% interest each in Block-56 while HPCL and BPCL have 12.5% each.
