Oil find, just 47km from Kolkata, holds commercial potential
KOLKATA: After decades of claims by oil and natural gas exploration agencies, Bengal finally looks set to find a place on the oil map of the world. Union minister for steel, petroleum & natural gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, has confirmed the commercial viability of an oil and gas reserve discovered in 2018 by ONGC in Ashoknagar of North 24 Parganas, just 47km from Kolkata.
For the past two years, stakeholders had kept their excitement in check as several similar claims of oil finds in Bay of Bengal near the Sunderbans had later turned out to be commercially unviable. But putting to rest speculations, the petroleum minister announced on Thursday that “going by experts”, the ONGC find “can be commercially exploited” and added that samples from the exploration field in Ashoknagar had recently been taken to Indian Oil’s Haldia refinery for further analysis.
“Next week I would come to Bengal and may visit the place. This would be a first-of-its-kind for Bengal,” Pradhan said while addressing the annual general meeting of MCCI over video link.
