Drilling for oil ahead of schedule

Cairn India will commence drilling their fourth oil exploration well in the Mannar basin in February, three months ahead of schedule. The drilling of the fourth well was earlier planned to take place in mid 2013.

"However, due to early rig availability and excellent logistical preparations, the spud date has been advanced by a quarter.

The preparation for drilling is now complete with a rig being secured from Transocean. Drilling of an exploration well is planned in this month," Cairn India stated in their third quarter results for FY13.

Cairn, in its first exploration phase in Sri Lanka, drilled three wells in the Mannar basin and the company discovered natural gas in two of them. According to the report, the company revenue grew by 38 percent to $ 791 m and profit after tax excluding foreign gains grew by 49 percent to $ 540 m.

"We are focused on exploration across our asset portfolio in India and core areas internationally.

In Sri Lanka we brought forward our offshore exploration drilling from June to mid-February for which the rig is already on its way," Interim Chief Executive Officer of Cairn India, P. Elango, stated in the report.