Cairn Lanka to invest $113-mn for oil and gas exploration

New Delhi: Cairn Lanka (Pvt), a subsidiary of Cairn India, said that it has entered into an agreement with Sri Lanka’s Board of Investment, committing an initial investment of $113 million in its recently awarded oil and gas exploration block.

A statement issued by the company said, “the Sri Lanka, Board of Investment (BOI), the governing body for promoting industrial investments in Sri Lanka and Cairn Lanka (Pvt) Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cairn India, has entered into an agreement for a commitment of an initial investment of more than $110 million towards the exploration of hydrocarbons”.

The programme of work will be in the Block SL 2007-01-001, which is offshore North West Sri Lanka and covers approximately 3,000 sq. km (km2) in water depths of 200 metres to 1,800 metres in the Mannar basin. It was awarded to Cairn in the recent bidding round held in the island-nation.

The work programme includes proposals to acquire 5,000 km of 2D, 1,000 km2 of 3D seismic and drill three wells in the initial three years of the eight-year exploration period.

The agreement was signed between Mr Dhammika Perera, Chairman and Director General, BOI Sri Lanka, and Mr Elango P. Director, Cairn Lanka, on Wednesday. The signing for the exploration licence to explore for oil and natural gas in the Mannar basin took place, earlier in July, in Colombo.