Another Indian firm to explore oil in Mannar Basin

Monday, 5 December 2011 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

India’s Oil and Natural Gas Company (ONGC) has expressed interest in exploring for oil in the Mannar Basin off the Sri Lanka’s northwest coast.

Petroleum Minister Susil Premajayantha has said ONGC officials are expected to visit the country shortly for discussions and assess the already available data.

The Minister told ColomboPage the Indian officials were scheduled to visit the country last week, but had postponed the visit. The officials from the Indian company are to assess the possibility of drilling for oil and natural gas in the Mannar Basin according to current data.

Meanwhile, officials from Russia’s Gazprom who were visiting the country had met with officials from Cairns India to discuss the data about natural gas deposits found by them in the Mannar Basin.

Gazprom has expressed interest in exploring for oil and natural gas in Sri Lanka.

Cairn Lanka, a subsidiary of Cairn India Ltd., exploring for oil since August, found gas deposits with some hydrocarbon liquid in two exploratory wells in Mannar basin last month.

Premajayantha said the Russian company would make a final decision after studying the data collected by the company’s technical officials who visited the country.

Mannar basin has eight oil and gas exploration blocks and two of them have been granted to China and India.