Essar Oil clears Rs. 900-cr for coal block infrastructure

In its bid to build supply chain infrastructure including laying pipelines and drilling wells, Essar Oil has set aside a staggering sum worth Rs. 900 crore to be invested in the coal-bed methane block (CBM) in West Bengal, said Managing Director and CEO Vilas Tawde, adding that among other things, the company will be drilling 150 more wells on its Raniganj CBM block to more than double gas output in the next two years. The company has already invested about Rs 4,000 crore in the Raniganj East coal-bed methane (CBM) block in drilling wells, setting up supply infrastructure and laying customer pipelines to Durgapur and nearby industrial areas. Another Rs 900 crore would be invested in drilling and creating necessary infrastructure in the next two years. He further said adding that currently the player is selling its entire production of coal seam gas from the block to GAIL. The Raniganj East block is India's most prolific CBM block, holding 1 Trillion cubic feet of recoverable reserves and that the company has targeted a turnover of Rs 600 crore from the CBN business in 2018-19 and expects it to double in the next two years.