Essar Oil & Gas Invests In Microbial ECBM Technology To Boost CBM Output

Essar Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Ltd (EOGEPL) on Monday announced an investment in microbial eCBM technology to boost coal-bed methane (CBM) production from its CBM block in West Bengal.

The company, which has so far invested Rs 5,000 crore in finding and producing gas from coal seams, called CBM, plans to invest an additional Rs 2,000 crore to enhance its reserve base and ramp up CBM production to contribute at least 5 per cent to India's total gas production, EOGEPL said in a statement.

It has drilled about 350 wells on its Raniganj Block in West Bengal and is currently producing nearly 0.9 million cubic meters of gas per day.

Investment in microbial eCBM technology will help raise the output by raising the recovery rate.

"EOGEPL has collaborated with The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI) and ONGC Energy Centre (OEC) to establish the potential of eCBM microbial technology in the Raniganj-East Block of the company.

"The feasibility test of the technique has been completed in collaboration with TERI-OEC, and in parallel R&D is ongoing for full-field application," the company said.

The company, however, did not give details of the investment.

"The investment in microbial eCBM technology demonstrates our commitment to increasing production and reserves base. With this initiative, we aim to upsurge gas production while contributing towards the vision of becoming a 'gas-based economy' in the next decade," said Pankaj Kalra, CEO of EOGEPL.

After extensive study, eCBM Microbial stimulation has been completed in five wells of the Raniganj-East Block of the company.

These wells will be monitored for the coming three to six months, and based on the results, along with final optimization of design, EOGEPL will implement the technology at large scale to maximize gas yield and improve the reserves base.

The Microbial Treatment is one of the 'enhanced recovery methods' used in the oil and gas industry to increase reserves. With the introduction of the Microbial Stimulation Technology, an upsurge in the production of CBM gas is expected, while improving the reserve base by up to 10 per cent.

EOGEPL has so far invested in excess of Rs 5,000 crore in the exploration and commercial development of the Raniganj CBM Block and is the only E&P company in India to produce over 80 billion cubic feet of CBM to date.

"As the largest CBM producer in the country, EOGEPL is committed to investing in cutting-edge technologies such as hydro-fracking, radial drilling, and microbial treatments to further advance its R&D efforts," it said.

EOGEPL is one of the largest E&P companies in India primarily focused in the domain of unconventional hydrocarbons (UHC) having a resource base of 12 Tcf (Trillion Cubic Feet) CBM and shale gas resources.

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