Vedanta Plans $200 Million Push to Boost Rajasthan Oil Output
BARMER: Vedanta Oil and Gas, formerly known as Cairn India, is putting more money into its ageing Rajasthan fields to slow the natural decline of its reservoirs and raise crude output from wells that are already producing. At the same time, the company is building up India’s northeast as a new centre for gas growth.
Where the money is going?
The company plans to invest about $200 million (₹2,000 crore) in 2026-27 across northern Rajasthan. The spend covers three fields: Mangla, Bhagyam and Aishwariya.
Mangla is the first priority
The immediate focus is Mangla, the field whose discovery in 2004 turned Barmer into India’s biggest onshore oil-producing region. Vedanta is aiming to push output from Mangla above 150,000 barrels a day (bpd), compared with about 80,000 bpd now. To get there, it will use polymer flooding, well interventions and other enhanced-recovery measures.
The company is also expanding enhanced oil recovery at Mangla through polymer flooding and alkaline-surfactant-polymer injection.
Why recovery matters more than new wells?
Jim Johnny Gast, interim CEO and whole-time director of Vedanta Oil and Gas, said producing fields are seeing natural declines of 1-3 per cent. That makes getting more oil out of existing wells essential to lifting output.
According to Gast, recovery from producing wells has reached 41 per cent, and the company has set a target of 60 per cent.
The national picture
Gast spoke to media persons in Barmer and tied the company’s plans to a wider gap in India’s energy supply. He said domestic crude production has stayed flat at 0.87-0.99 mmboe (million barrels of oil equivalent) over the last 20 years, while consumption has nearly doubled, from 2.65 to 5.6 mmboe. His view is that exploring small sedimentary basins and raising output from producing wells can help narrow that gap.
Production has slipped
The push comes after a weaker year. Vedanta’s average gross operated production was 77.7 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day (kboepd) in the first quarter of this financial year, down 17 per cent from 93.2 kboepd a year earlier. Rajasthan remains the company’s largest producing asset, accounting for 81 per cent of total production.
