Drilling for oil and gas exploration began near Meidum village in Kolasib district in the north western part of Mizoram from Tuesday, official sources said.

Mr H Lallenmawia, Joint Director of the State Geology and Mining Resources department said, “This time we are extremely optimistic of finding hydrocarbon deposits as the drilling is undertaken after proper investigation with state of the art technology and equipments.”

Mr Lallenmawia said that the ONGC, after seven years of investigation, commenced the exploration venture at a place about two kilometres from Meidum village on February 1, in the presence of Mr Joe Solu, ONGC’s Basin Manager (NE India).

Geologists said that Mizoram is virtually floating on oil and gas deposits and oil exploration majors like the ONGC, IOC, OIL and companies from Israel, the US, Russia and France have been selected to undertake the exploration works at different places in the state.

The investigation for oil exploration was taken up in an area of 12,430 square kilometres comprising 58.9 per cent of the total geographical area of Mizoram.

In accordance with the agreements signed with the exploration giants, 12 per cent of oil produced and 10 per cent of gas produced would go to the state of Mizoram as royalty and as recommended by the 11th Finance Commission, the net profit would also be shared by the state and the central governments on 50-50 basis, Mr Lallenmawia said.

Mizoram falls under the category No.1 or ’proven commercial productivity zone’ and according to rough estimates, there could be around 170 million metric tonnes of untapped crude reserves.

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