GUWAHATI, Aug 5 - With Oil India Limited (OIL) getting allocation of 21 new exploration blocks under the Open Acreage Licencing Policy (OALP), the company is heading for a better future and despite some hardships, the company managed to maintain its production level in the last financial year. Moreover, OIL is also taking effective steps for enhancing production in the days to come.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of OIL, Utpal Bora said that OIL had to show a loss in the last quarter of the last financial year because of the fact that the company made provisions for a new pension scheme for its employees to provide them better retirement benefits. However, despite that, the OIL managed to earn a profit of more than Rs 2500 crore after tax in the last financial year, he added.
Bora said that after a downward slide for a few years, in the year, 2016-17 , the OIL managed to arrest the slide and recorded one per cent increase of production , while, in the following year, the production increased by 3.5 per cent. Though some local disturbances for some time prevented the OIL from further increasing production in the last financial year, the level of the previous year could be maintained. He said that the OIL is hoping to increase the level of production in the current financial year.
The OIL CMD said that the downward slide could be arrested by strict vigilance at all levels and expressed the opinion that all officers and employees of the OIL should get the credit for the turn around.
Bora pointed out that the allocation of 21 new exploration blocks would give a major boost to the company in the days to come. He pointed out that majority of the areas, where the OIL is now operating, are very old and they are confined around a 5,000 square kilometer area. He said that it is difficult to maintain the same level of production in the old fields due to natural reservoir decline and the new exploration blocks would be of great help in increasing production. He said that several of the new blocks are in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, closer to the existing area of operation of OIL, which would be of major help to the company in monetizing. He said that, OIL is also venturing off shore and one of the three off shore exploration blocks allocated to the company is near the Andaman and Nicobar islands. Replying to a question, he asserted that though the OIL has not worked in off shore exploration for some time, there should not be any problem of lack of expertize.
Bora revealed that the OIL is planning to explore the river Brahmaputra as a part of the new explorations. He admitted that there were some concerns expressed by environmentalist groups in the past as they feared that the flora and fauna of the river would be disturbed due to exploration. �But now everyone has realized the fact that the exploration will not affect the flora and fauna and there should not be any opposition,� he added. He also said that the OIL has been allocated one block in Nagaland and talks with the Government of Nagaland would start soon to sort out local issues, if any. He further revealed that the Government of Arunachal Pradesh has renewed the mining licence of an existing field recently and that would also help the OIL in increasing production in the days to come.
