ONGC starts oil and gas production from West Bengal after 60 years endeavour

West Bengal gets included in ONGC’s oil and gas map with its eighth field at Ashoknagar in West Bengal starting commercial production on Sunday. ONGC first extracted 20 kilolitres of crude oil from the Ashoknagar oilfields early November this year and had sent it to Indian Oil’s Haldia refinery for processing.

Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Oil & natural gas and steel minister, flagging off the commercial production through switching on sucker road pump, said: “ONGC so far has invested rS 3,361 crore for exploration of hydrocarbon in the Bengal basin to find oil and gas reserves. Another Rs 425 crore would be spent on exploration in the Bengal basin spread over 1.22 lakh km, two-third of which falls under the Bay of Bengal waters.”