il company Cairn India announced plans to launch the world’s largest enhanced oil recovery programme in the Mangala and Bhagyam oil fields Rajasthan’s Thar desert. The programme aims to boost an output level of 170,000 barrels of oil per day.

Cairn India to launch world’s largest EOR programme

NEW DELHI, December 15, 2015 – Oil company Cairn India announced plans to launch the world’s largest enhanced oil recovery programme in the Mangala and Bhagyam oil fields Rajasthan’s Thar desert. The programme aims to boost an output level of 170,000 barrels of oil per day.

Cairn India’s CEO Mayank Ashar said the company will complete 100 exploration and appraisal wells and 350 development wells in 2016, investing $760 million. Rajasthan’s oilfields account for 23% of India’s domestic crude production.

The company announced that polymer injection tests in the Mangala field have produced incremental oil of 11% of around 150,000 bopd in the pilot. The company expects an additional recovery of 40 million-50 million barrels of unrecovered oil from the Bhagyam field.

The cost of the Bhagyam project alone is $260 million, which will result in a development cost of $5-6 per barrel according to Ashar. The low development cost should prevent the oil price slump from making the project prohibitively expensive.

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