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India’s Vedanta to Sink Billions into Oil and Gas, Commodities: Report
India’s largest private producer of crude oil Vedanta plans to invest billions of dollars into the oil and gas sector and its commodities-related business, according to a report by S&P Global Commodity Insights, citing company chairman Anil Agarwal.
Agarwal said that the changing energy landscape will increase demand for oil and gas, as well as metal resources, in the foreseeable future, according to the report.
Vedanta owns Cairn Oil & Gas, which is the largest private sector producer of crude oil in India, owning assets in the regions of Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat in India, according to the company website. The Mangala field in Rajasthan, discovered in January 2004, was the largest onshore oil discovery in India in two decades. The Mangala, Bhagyam, and Aishwariya fields, the three major discoveries in the Rajasthan block, cumulatively have reserves of approximately 7.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (Bboe). Cairn has 62 licenses in India, which are estimated to contain over 3.0 Bboe of gross unrisked prospective resources.
In an earlier news release, Cairn said that its estimated total gross 2P plus 2C resources have reached 1.156 Bboe, of which oil accounts for 85 percent. 2P reserves are the total of proven and probable reserves, while 2C is the best estimate of contingent resources. The company is planning up to 20 potential new development projects to bring a substantial proportion of the 846 million barrels of oil equivalent of gross 2C resources into production. The company plans to drill up to 20 exploration wells in the next two years, targeting approximately 500 million barrels of oil equivalent of gross unrisked prospective resources.
“Cairn has a world-class resource base of over 1.1 Bboe gross, and we continued to sustain the business last year, adding more resources than we produced”, Cairn CEO Nick Walker said. “We have significant undeveloped resources and we’re moving at pace to apply the latest technology to define a portfolio of up to 20 new projects. We’ve also a material exploration position in India and are commencing an exciting exploration drilling program aimed at continuing to grow our resources. Cairn is committed to increasing India’s domestic oil and gas production, with a vision to contribute 50 percent of the country’s crude production.”
Cairn’s current total production capacity stands at 147,000 boe per day, with the Rajasthan block contributing 120,000 boe per day, or nearly 82 percent of the total. Cumulatively, the block has produced over 700 million boe in the last decade, according to the news release.
In a separate news release, Cairn said it signed three memorandums of understanding with the state governments of Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh for biodiversity conservation through the mass plantation of 750,000 trees. The carbon captured through the mass plantation is equivalent to emissions needed to provide electricity to 4,500 Indian households, the company said.
The three agreements account for 38 percent of the two million trees that Cairn has pledged to plant by 2030 and will help the company achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The initiative is in line with India’s targets for the development of carbon sinks.
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