Gas Output from Essar's West Bengal CBM Block Crosses 0.5 scmd

Essar Oil on Monday said that gas production at its Raniganj coal bed methane (CBM) block in the Indian state of West Bengal has crossed 0.5 million standard cubic metres per day (scmd).

The company further said that with this it has become India’s largest CBM producer.

While nearly 100 wells have been already placed on gas production, an additional 155 wells have been drilled and are at various stages of the hydrofracking-completion-dewatering cycle for further production ramp up, Essar said adding that it has built a high quality infrastructure gas conditioning and compression stations, in-field pipelines of 120 km and last mile pipeline connectivity network to end users of about 60 km.

The company anticipates completing the development program ahead of the May 2016 deadline as per the contract with the Government of India.

According to the company, gas from this project shall be the feedstock to the priority fertilizer sector with the anchor customer being Matix Fertiliser & Chemicals Ltd., having the world’s largest single stream plant for ammonia and urea located in West Bengal.

“With unity of conception, technology and team effort, we have been able to register a multifold increase in CBM production to 0.55 million scmd and expect to ramp up delivery to 1.2 million scmd over the next few months by bringing wells on production stream which are drilled and presently under completion and dewatering phase," said Manish Maheshwari, CEO - E&P, Essar Oil.