MUMBAI: Cairn India, the largest private oil producer and the operator of the country's biggest oilfield in Barmer Rajasthan, is hoping to ramp up crude production in the Barmer blocks from the current 180,000 barrels per day to 210-215,000 bpd by the end of the current fiscal, said Navin Agarwal, chairman, Cairn India.

The company also plans to invest $3 billion dollars in its energy assets in India and a lions share of this capex will go into developing the prolific Barmer block

Agarwal was speaking on the sidelines of the company's seventh annual general meeting held in Mumbai on Wednesday.

"We have submitted an integrated field development plan for the Barmer block to the petroleum ministry and we are hopeful that it will be approved soon so that we can expedite production from the Barmer block," added P Elango, interim CEO, Cairn India. He also said, "We do not provide a break-up of the capex planned for all our different projects but the overall capex planned for India is $3 billion."

Cairn currently produces over 150,000 bpd of oil from the Mangala fields and over 25,000 bpd from from Bhagyam, and the balance 10,000 bpd are being produced by the Aishwarya fields which commenced production earlier this March.

The Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwariya fields, constitute Cairn India's key assets in Rajasthan. These are the three largest finds in Rajasthan. The Mangala field is considered to be the largest onshore hydrocarbon find in India in the last two decades, it was discovered in January 2004. This was followed by discoveries at the Bhagyam and Aishwariya fields.

Agarwal was also very appreciative of the government's controversial move to revise gas prices every quarter according to a new formula that links local gas prices to landed LNG prices and gas prices in US, UK and Japan.

He said, "The government is moving in the right direction, this policy change will be very positive for the gas sector and we at Cairn India see it as very encouraging as this will propel us to make gas a very important part of our overall energy portfolio in India."

Earlier in March this year Cairn began commercial sale of natural gas from the Barmer block, the project will initially produce commercial volumes of about 5 million metric standard cubic feet (mmscf) per day, the block, at present, produces about 30 mmscf of gas per day from the Raageshwari field and the Mangala and Bhagyam fields (as associated gas along with crude oil).

In fact ET had reported earlier that Cairn India is keen to venture into city gas distribution in Rajasthan and was keen to partner with the Rajasthan State Petroleum Corporation's (RSPCL) joint venture with GAIL for this new business.

While addressing the AGM, Agarwal also said, "Cairn India contributed more than 80 % of India's crude oil production growth last year, saving Rs 38,500 crore ($ 7 billion) in foreign exchange." He also said, "Our operations contributed Rs 20,000 crore (US$ 3.6 billion) to the government (perhaps) the highest in the private sector."

He also said, "We recommenced exploration in Rajasthan after a gap of 5 years, that resulted in our 26th discovery. We committed investment of about $3 billion on further exploration and increase in production."

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com