Cairn India gained nearly 1% at Rs 308 in the morning trades as the company won approval to drill exploration wells on the prolific Rajasthan block. This is estimated to help boost output to 215,000 barrels per day by March 2014.
A block oversight committee, headed by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), on February 14 allowed the company to drill its first exploration well on Rajasthan block in more than five years, sources said.
The proposal to allow exploration in a producing field was pending with the Oil Ministry for more than one and a half years. Only last month the ministry allowed firms like Cairn to drill probe wells within an oil and gas field, but with the condition that cost recovery of such wells would be allowed only in case there is a commercially exploitable discovery.
So far, 5.5 lakh shares have been traded on the BSE and NSE exchanges.
