Cairn Oil & Gas, part of billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Resources, has revealed its reserves and resources portfolio in India has crossed 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
It comes as India’s largest private oil and gas company has earmarked 20 new development projects in its homeland to bring a substantial proportion of its resources into production.
Cairn’s estimated total gross proven-plus-probable reserves plus best estimate gross contingent resources stand at 1.156 billion billion boe, of which oil accounts for 85%, the company said in a statement on Thursday.
The private sector player said that the gross hydrocarbons in place across all of its assets stand at about 6.7 billion boe, of which 1.18 billion boe has been produced to date.
However, the company did not reveal its previous reserves or resources and neither did it disclose the volume of reserves added to its portfolio.
Cairn operates the flagship Rajasthan onshore block, which contributes to the majority of the company’s production in India.
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The company said it is “defining up to 20 potential new development projects to bring a substantial proportion of the 846 million barrels of oil equivalent” of gross best estimate gross contingent resources into production.
Cairn stated that during the fiscal year that ended 31 March 2023, its total “reserve plus resource additions exceeded production”, largely due to the award of eight Discovered Small Field (DSF) licences.
“This addition resulted in a resource replacement ratio of 108%,” it noted.
Exploration plans
Cairn said that its acreage position holds more than 3 billion boe of estimated gross unrisked prospective resources and the company plans to drill up to 20 exploration wells in the next two years, targeting 500 million boe in gross unrisked resources.
Nick Walker, the chief executive of Cairn, said the company has a world-class resource base of over 1.1 billion boe and it continues to sustain the business last year, adding more resources than it produced.
“We have significant undeveloped resources and we’re moving at pace to apply the latest technology to define a portfolio of up to 20 new projects,” he noted.
Cairn is currently contributing up to 25% of India’s crude oil production and has a “vision to grow it to 50%”, led by the flagship Rajasthan asset.
The company has a diverse portfolio of 62 exploration blocks in India including several awarded as a part of India’s open acreage and licensing round.