'Survey indicates petroleum reserves in Bihar'

Samastipur, Jul 27: Bihar's Energy Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav has said that a Canadian company had found enough evidences of petroleum reserves in the Ganga basin of north Bihar.

Mr Yadav told reporters here yesterday that Cairn India Limited had carried out under-ground explosions at Angarghat in Samastipur district during the day and the related data gathered from this tests were similar to that of seismic data, indicating petroleum reserves in the Ganga basin.

"Earlier the Grand Geo-Physical company of Canada had done the airborne seismic survey to acquire aero-magnetic data between January and March 2007, which had also come to the conclusion about the possibility of oil and natural gas reserves in some districts of north Bihar'', he added.

General Managaer (operations) cum project officer for North Bihar Sunil Mittal, who was also present on the occassion, said that the seismic surveys were comprehensively conducted in Samastipur, Darbhanga and Madhubani districts. The operation covered an area from Dalsinghsarai in the south to Jainagar in the north and from Singhwara in the west to Ladania in the east, which is one of the largest sedimentary basins of India, yet unexplored.

"Approximately 500 'line kilometres' of data will be acquired for seismic survey to understand the geological structures below the surface'', he added.

"It is not enough to get satisfaction from the possibility of petroleum reserves in the area but economic viability for exploiting the oil and natural gas reserves would also be looked into before moving ahead for establishing the venture for the same here'', he maintained.

Mr Mittal said a large team of skilled and specialised personnel were involved in the operation and several hundred personnel from local area had also been deployed on a temporary basis. Cairn representatives had also met local farmers to discuss crop prices for compensation, he added.

UNI