Ashoknagar Oilfield (MBA Basin: Ashoknagar 1 Well) is a petroleum extracting-site located at Ashoknagar in the

North 24 Parganas district North 24 Parganas (abv. 24 PGS (N)) or sometimes North Twenty Four Parganas is a district in southern West Bengal, of eastern India. North 24 Parganas extends in the tropical zone from latitude 22° 11′ 6″ north to 23° 15′ 2″ north and f ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

. The oil field is located 48 km from the state capital

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. The oil field was discovered in 2018 by

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is a central public sector undertaking under the ownership of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. It is headquartered in New Delhi. ONGC was founded on 14 August 1956 by the ...

. This is the first oil field in

and

East India East India is a region of India consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The region roughly corresponds to the historical region of Magadh ...

. December 20, 2020, Union Petroleum Minister

Dharmendra Pradhan Dharmendra Pradhan (; born 26 June 1969) is an Indian politician serving as the Minister of Education and Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in the Government of India. He has also been the Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas ...

inaugurated the oil and natural gas reserves at Ashoknagar.

History

In Ashoknagar gas was first found under 2,300 meters from the surface after came oil. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and

Oil India Oil India Limited (OIL) is a central public sector undertaking under the ownership of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas oversees its operations, with its headquarters in ...

were awarded the block in Bengal basin under the Mahanadi-Bengal- Andaman division, way back in 2009. The first phase of exploration got over in 2014. The huge reserves of oil and gas were found in the second phase with commercial exploitability confirmed on August 20, 2018. For 60 years Oil and Natural Gas Corporation has been trying to get oil and gas reserves in

digging 150 wells in the process. But its first discovery happened in Ashoknagar on 3.5 acres.

Location of wells

* Baigachi, near Hijlia Bridge * Daulatpur, near 19 No. Bridge * Bhurkunda, near Bhurkunda Bazaar

Capacity and production

State-owned explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation took advantage of a newly prescribed policy of the centre to position Bengal on the oil and gas map of India following its discovery at the Ashoknagar block, even as the long-term commercial viability of the hydrocarbon asset remains to be ascertained. According to sources, the capacity of the block could be one hundred thousand cubic metres per day of gas and 15-18 cubic metres of oil pr day . “Two exploratory wells have been dug there,” the sources said. Besides Assam, no eastern or northeastern state has an operating oil field. Neither is there an operating natural gas field in the region.

Quality of crude oil

Around 375 barrels of crude oil, whose quality is said to be even better than India's most prolific oil asset

Bombay High The Mumbai High Field, formerly called the Bombay High Field, is an offshore oilfield 176 km off the west coast of Mumbai, in Gulf of Cambay region of India, in about 75 m of water. The oil operations are run by India's Oil and Natural Gas ...

, have been extracted from a well on the outskirts Ashoknagar since September 2020, making it the most potent hydrocarbon discovery ever made in the state. The quality of oil extracted from this basin is far superior to the

Brent Crude Brent Crude may refer to any or all of the components of the Brent Complex, a physically and financially traded oil market based around the North Sea of Northwest Europe; colloquially, Brent Crude usually refers to the price of the ICE (Intercon ...

and is at par with

West Texas Intermediate West Texas Intermediate (WTI) is a grade or mix of crude oil; the term is also used to refer to the spot price, the futures price, or assessed price for that oil. In colloquial usage, WTI usually refers to the WTI Crude Oil futures contract tr ...

which is considered the world's best known benchmark crude oil. Oil from Ashoknagar has API gravity of 40-41, which is considered to be a light variety and sought after because of the lower load it exerts on refineries. A higher API gravity indicates a lighter and lower density crude. Light crude falls under the 35-45 API gravity range. West Texas Intermediate crude, denoted to oil lifted in the North America, has an API gravity of 39.6 degrees.

Brent crude Brent Crude may refer to any or all of the components of the Brent Complex, a physically and financially traded oil market based around the North Sea of Northwest Europe; colloquially, Brent Crude usually refers to the price of the ICE (Intercon ...

, a benchmark for oil produced in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

, has a density of around 835 kg/m3, being equivalent to a specific gravity of 0.835 or an API gravity of 38.06.

Future prospects

PSU behemoth Oil and Natural Gas Corporation will explore two more blocks in North 24-Parganas, after successful exploration of commercially viable oil block in Ashoknagar in North 24-Parganas, 48 km from

. These new blocks were acquired under OALP while the oil-producing block was acquired under previous NELP VII. North 24-Parganas has a huge potential of both oil and gas and can prove a big boon for the economy of West Bengal, said Union minister for petroleum and natural gas

on Sunday while dedicating Bengal Basin, the 8th oil-producing basin in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, to the nation. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation would invest Rs 425 crore in new exploration in the next two years in the basin. It has already invested Rs 3,400 crore for developing the producing block in North 24-Parganas in the last two years. The crude from this block will be refined from

Haldia refinery Haldia Refinery is an oil refinery operated by Indian Oil Corporation, located in Haldia city in the state of West Bengal. This refinery has a capacity of 8 million tonnes per year. For processing 2.5 MMTPA of Middle East crude, two sectors wer ...

Indian Oil Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL; d/b/a IndianOil) is a central public sector undertaking under the ownership of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. It is headquartered in New Delhi. It is a public sector unde ...

. Pradhan also made it clear that land acquisition for new exploration would be done with the help of local government and as per its rules and regulations.

References

{{reflist Oil fields in India North 24 Parganas district ONGC oil and gas fields