Assam Company Limited embarks on global oil exploration

By Staff
|
Google Oneindia News

Kolkata, May 15 (UNI) Assam Company Limited, the flagship company of the Duncan Macneill Group, has joined hands with Australian oil giant Austin Exploration Limited for exploring oil and gas in four major blocks in Australia and the USA from December this year on an equal partnership basis.

Announcing the maiden overseas venture of the city-based company, whose prime business interest so far centred around tea and medium scale oil exploration in the domestic fields only, ACL Managing Director-cum-Chief Executive Officer Aditya K Jajodia said following intense negotiations for nearly a year the final agreement with the Adelaide-based oil giant was signed last month with both the companies enjoying 50-50 financial stakes and revenue sharing agreements.

Though Mr Jajodia refused to disclose further on the financial aspects of the historic agreement, including how they planned to share the income from the oil and gas exploration activities in the coming years, he said since the final draft papers were yet to be prepared, they were "legally bound not to disclose more on the issue".

He said in order to spread the ACL's wings overseas for the first time in the exploration business, they planned to start exploration initially in two blocks - one each in the USA and in Australia - on the basis of the state-of-the-art micro-magnetic technology.

About the total reserves estimated in all the four blocks, Mr Jaojodia said after a through research it was estimated that they contained 798.18 million barrels of oil as well as 376 billion cubic metre of natural gas creating a huge wealth for both the companies.

Asked about ACL's domestic oil and gas exploration activities in the Amaguri block in Upper Assam in association with the Canadian oil exploration company "Canary", Mr Jajodia said the extensive 3-D survey of the entire 75-km area under the block was still continuing and the final report showing the exact locations of underground wealth was expected to be submitted by August this year .

" In fact we expected to complete the 3-D survey to know the exact quantity of underground reserves at Amaguriby February this year. But because of the sheer size of the zone it could not be completed on time despite our best efforts, " Mr Jajodia regretted.

He also welcomed the recent findings of some more oil fields in Assam by ONGC and said this would also open a new vista of further oil and gas exploration in the Northeastern state to help revive its economy to a great extent.

About the prorspect of sale of their product from Amguri, Mr Jajodia said under a present agreement GAIL was buying back the entire quantity of ACL production amounting 1,000 barrels of oil and 500,000 cubic metre of gas everyday.

" We are also planning to build the permanent Group Gathering station within the next one or two months, " Mr Jajodia informed replying to another query.

Referring to the overall condition of ACL's tradition tea business in Assam, Mr Jajodia said following a favourable monsoon last year and a repat of that this year too they were expecting a bumper and good quality crop with huge potential for capturing the export market.

The tea business was definitely looking up very well, he said replying to another query.

UNI ABA SJC KLC1757

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