The Hindu Business Line : Cairn hopes to sustain Ravva output for a decade

Oil and gas production company, Cairn India hopes to sustain current production of oil and gas from the Ravva field for the next decade. The Chief Executive Officer of Cairn India, Mr Rahul Dhir, said “the company has agreements that last till 2019 and we hope to sustain the current level of production of oil and gas from the wells in the Ravva fields.”

The company, which has already invested $100 million (about Rs 410 crore) in the Ravva fields during the current year plans to invest another Rs 300 crore next year. Cairn India investments in Ravva are aimed at sustaining the current level of oil production of 50,000 barrels a day.

Speaking to newspersons here after the company completed 10 years of association and supply of gas from the Ravva fields to GAIL (India) Ltd, Mr Dhir said that they have taken up work on about eight-10 fields since October 2006 and these would help sustain the current level.

Mr Dhir said, “In oil exploration, one cannot provide exact investment numbers ahead of the proposed schedules. And most of these investments would be staged investments. The company had broadly planned to invest about $2 billion over the next three years.”

In the ongoing exploration work at Ravva, Cairn India is deploying 4-D seismic technologies that would help better assess the well potential.

Steep rise

The Director, Strategy, Cairn India, Mr P. Elango said “what started with initial estimates of 100 million barrels at Ravva had far outpaced yielding nearly twice. Given the current potential and our investments, we expect this is about 300 million barrels to sustain the production of 50,000 barrels a day from Ravva fields.”

What started as pure oil well has yielded gas now supplied to GAIL whose customers include NFCL, Lanco Kondapalli, Andhra Pradesh Gas Power Corporation, Spectrum, GVK and Reliance Energy (BSES).

Last year, Cairn India recorded revenues of $150 million and in the first half this year $90 million and expects the second half to be no different. However, with exploration work at advanced stage in other parts, the production is poised for steep rise.

PIPELINE ISSUE

Mr Dhir said that they were hopeful of getting the necessary Government clearances for a pipeline to evacuate gas from Barmer, where they expect to invest $500 million initially, and the consortium partner $250 million. The production is likely to start by 2009.