New Delhi, Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri on Monday said that the production at the Ashoknagar Oil Field project in West Bengal would start soon, with both ONGC and the state government making efforts to finalise the lease deed.
With the Petroleum & Natural Gas Rules, 2025 being notified recently, the minister hoped that the issues related to stamp duty on lease as well as royalty would be “resolved”.
Replying to supplementaries during the Question Hour, the minister said, “So far as the Ashoknagar project is concerned… the production sharing contract was signed for exploration block WB-ONN-2005/4 between ONGC and OIL during NELP round 7. This was done in 2008, and ONGC was the contractor for this block”.
This block is located in the North 24 Pargana district, and the discovery was made in 2018, he added.
ONGC has already spent ₹1,000 crore so far in this project, the minister said.
“It is our estimate that the Bengal basin contains a total of 240 million barrels of oil equivalents in place proven reserve. If you go by these figures at 30 per cent recovery, the cumulative production value can be around ₹45,000 crore, and out of which the state of Bengal would get ₹4500 crore,” Puri said.