Cairn India, Halliburton join to explore shale in India

Indian private-sector firm Vedanta's Cairn Oil and Gas and US-based oil field services firm Halliburton have entered into a partnership to begin shale exploration in Rajasthan and increase Cairn's recoverable reserves from its offshore assets.

The agreement came about on the sidelines of the Adipec 2021 conference in Abu Dhabi, and comes just about a month and a half after Vedanta Resources' executive chairman Anil Agarwal said that Cairn would contribute 50pc of the country's total crude production within 2-3 years to reduce oil prices.

The two companies aim to increase Cairn's recoverable reserves from offshore assets to 300mn bl of oil equivalent (boe) from the current 30mn boe, and commence shale exploration in the Lower Barmer Hill (LBH) formation of western Rajasthan, according to a joint statement.

"To increase domestic production, India needs to encourage exploration of new fields, increase investment and technology for ageing fields, and also incentivise unconventional options like shale and gas," said chief executive officer of Cairn Oil and Gas Prachur Sah, adding that the partnership will be another step towards their target of increasing production capacities to 500,000 boe/d.

The offshore assets targeted to increase recoverable reserves include Ravva, off the coast of Andhra Pradesh, Cambay, on the western coast, and several newly-acquired Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) blocks, according to the joint statement.

Additionally, India is yet to commercially produce shale oil. The current shale potential at Barmer basin stands at 3bn bl and Cairn wants to establish a reserve of 300mn boe with this partnership, the statement added.

By Sathya Narayanan