India's first oil well turns 50

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Independent India’s first crude oil well has just turned fifty. Lunej 1 was a fountainhead of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), what is today Asia’s largest oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) company.

More importantly, this ageing well in Gujarat, well-emptied from its core, gave a ray of hope to a several other wells in the region known as the Cambay Basin.

On the historic day of September 5, 1958, little did the ONGC’s shift geologist, while observing the flow before the pullout, knew what the brownish spot along with the mud were — for he had never seen crude in his life. He called Russian engineers from the base camp which was 5-7 km from the area. The Russian team came and said “Yes! It is oil show, we have discovered oil.” The well came to be known as Lunej # 1. Incidentally, it was the Russians’ first drilling experience in India and they had struck oil.

Interestingly, a telegraph, if delivered on time, could never have made this discovery possible. While drilling through thick section of Cambay Black shale it was thought there were no sand in the area, and so the drilling was to be called off. Such were the deliberations that had taken place in Dehradun, the ONGC headquarters. The message to terminate drilling was sent through a coded telegram from Dehradun which somehow reached late, and so the drilling continued.

This incident has been narrated by Lakshman Singh, former director, IRS, who worked as a shift geologist at Cambay Well No 1 in 1958, and is documented by ONGC.

ONGC’s discovery had come at a time, when drilling at Cambay was opposed by almost everybody, according to a recent ONGC report. The opposition was based on the misconception that Cambay was a basin where oil generation could not have taken place, the report said.

According to Singh, once dressed in his khakis, he had been to the flow line to collect sample in a bucket. But he was caught unawares by the pressure and was soaked in oil all over his body. For a long time he had kept the khakhi trouser and shirt as a memoir.

Prior to this discovery the Britishers had struck oil in Assam in pre-independence India, said a senior ONGC official.

ONGC Mehsana Asset has celebrated the Golden Jubilee of first oil find at Lunej by taking out a torch rally covering all the operations of the public sector giant.