Gas Prom to join oil exploration soon

by L.S. Ananda WEDAARACHCHI

Gas Prom, the Russian oil and natural Gas giant will join the oil and gas exploration in Sri Lanka in the near future, said Petroleum Industries Minister Susil Premajayantha.

Officials from Gas Prom held talks with the government in this connection recently.

He said that Russian Scientists had been engaged in oil exploration in the Northern sea in the 1970. Gas Prom's participation in Sri Lanka's oil exploration will be a landmark event, he said.

The minister said that drilling oil wells in the mannar basin which commenced early this month by Cairn Lanka Company is now in progress.

Cairn Lanka will initially drill three wells in the Mannar basin within six months.

The seismic data based on research conducted by Cairn Lanka Company during the past two years had shown the presence of oil and gas deposits in the basin's M3 block.There are eight oil exploration blocks.

The block M3 was awarded to Cairn Lanka Company, a subsidiary of Cairn India Company through the worldwide tenders.

The other blocks and cauvery basin in the northern coast are also reported to have petroleum and gas deposits, according to a survey conducted by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation in 2005 and TGs NOPEC a Norwegian research Company.