Essar Oil becomes India's largest CBM gas producer

Indian oil and gas producer Essar Oil on Monday said it has become India's largest coalbed methane (CBM) gas producer as its gas unit in Raniganj in West Bengal crossed production of 5 lakh standard cubic metres per day (scmd) recently.

"We have been able to register a multifold increase in CBM production to 5.5 lakh scmd and expect to ramp up delivery to 12 lakh scmd over the next few months by bringing wells on production stream which are drilled and are presently under completion and dewatering phase," the company's CEO for exploration and production Manish Maheshwari said in a statement.

The company said that with an investment outlay of Rs.4,000 crore for the project in Burdwan district in the state, it has placed nearly 100 wells on gas production and an additional 155 wells have been drilled and are at various stages to further gas production.

It has also built compression stations and in-field pipelines of 120 km and another 60 km to ferry gas to end-users.

Also, investments have been made for gas conditioning facilities.

"The company anticipates completing the development programme ahead of the May 2016 deadline as per the contract with the central government. Gas from this project shall be the feedstock to the priority fertiliser sector with the anchor customer being Matix Fertiliser & Chemicals Ltd located in West Bengal," the company said. It also has two gas blocks in Assam in the prolific Assam-Arakan frontier basin.