Mangala Area
| Mangala Area (Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwariya Fields) | |
|---|---|
| Country | India |
| Block | RJ-ON-90-1 |
| Offshore/onshore | Onshore |
| Operators | Cairn India |
| Partners | Oil and Natural Gas Corporation |
| Field history | |
| Discovery | 1999 |
| Start of production | Nov 2005 |
| Abandonment | 2041 (expected) |
| Production | |
| Current production of oil | 200,000 barrels per day (~1.0×107 t/a) |
| Estimated oil in place | 3,600 million barrels (~4.9×108 t) |
| Producing formations | Tertiary, Palaeocene, Fatehgarh |
The Mangala Area, located in Block RJ-ON-90-1 (the Rajasthan Block), is a major oil field located in the Indian State of Rajasthan. The Mangala area consists of over 16 separate oil and gas fields of which the majority of the reserves are located in the three fields of Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwariya. The Mangala Area sits in Barmer Basin and is thought to contain oil in place volumes of 3.6 billion barrels (570,000,000 m3), of which 1 billion barrels (160,000,000 m3) are thought to be recoverable. Cairn India is the operator of the field, a subsidiary of Vedanta Group.
Royal Dutch Shell won the licensing round for Block RJ-ON-90-1 in 1992 from the Indian Government, entering into a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) with them.
In 1998, Royal Dutch Shell sunk a well in the area and put a logging tool probe (which detects hydrocarbons) down the bore. However, the electronic readings came up negative. A worker for Cairn Energy at the site (which then held a 10% stake in the leasehold) noticed that the probe was actually dripping in oil. - This was later found to be oil from the calibration run, inserted to the well at ground level to test the logging tool.
27% of this contract was then sold to Cairn Energy in 1998 in return for covering some historical costs and drilling the next exploration well. Cairn's stake increased to 50% in 1999 by offering in exchange to fund the second exploration well.
Subsequently, Cairn purchased 50% of Shell's leaseholding and the remaining 50% in 2002 for $7.25 million. [1]
$100 million was spent by Cairn Energy on wells. In January 2004, 3.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent was found in Mangala, making it 2004's biggest discovery of on-shore oil in the world. [2]
In 2005 the national Indian oil company ONGC exercised their right as part of the terms of the PSC to acquire a 30% stake in the two larger fields discovered to date. The company retains this option on all further discoveries in the block. 2006 saw a restructuring of Cairn Energy into three companies, Cairn Energy, Cairn India and Capricorn Energy. Block RJ-ON-90-1 was included in the assets of Cairn India, which was floated on the Indian stock market in the same year, raising almost $2 billion.
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