In a significant development, the state-owned Oil India Limited (OIL) commenced its exploration and production activities in Tripura by spudding its well at Debtamura in Tripura’s Gomati district, officials said here on Wednesday.

 An OIL spokesman said that the company’s Resident Chief Executive (RCE), Rupjyoti Phukan and other senior officials from OIL attended the spudding ceremony on Sunday at the location, around 120 km away from Agartala.

Terming the event a historic breakthrough in Tripura’s hydrocarbon scenario, as the Debtamura-1 well is going to be the first well drilled by any oil and gas company in the state of Tripura, under the government of India’s Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) regime.

The well Debtamura-1 is located inside Baramura-Debtamura reserve forest in Gomati district, near the India-Bangladesh international border, the spokesman said.

He said so far hydrocarbon exploration and production activities in this block had been beset with a myriad set of challenges which broadly include undulated and thick vegetated terrain, challenging surface logistics due to limited and narrow hilly roads having hairpin curves, and predominant.

The extended monsoon season is causing unprecedented floods and the ensuing landslides due to younger sediments dissected by lineaments, which badly damaged the well plinths and the approach road, also causing a challenging task in the areas, the spokesman added.

He said, “Overcoming all these, the spirit of all Oil Indians speaks to its moment and our aspiration of Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

Maj General (Retd) Praveen Mathur, Advisor - Security (DGH), Sutirtha Paul, Joint Director, Directorate of Industries and Commerce, of Tripura government, Chitra Mohan Borah, Executive Director and HoD, Frontier Basin Project, OIL, Arunav Baruah, Chief General Manager (FB), OIL, Pankaj Kumar Biswas, General Manager, GAIL, and other senior officials from OIL attended the spudding ceremony at the location.

Meanwhile, another government-owned oil and gas major, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), found a significant quantity of natural gas reserves in Tripura.

Since 1972, it has drilled over 200 wells in the northeastern state, and a significant number of wells are yielding gas.

The ONGC currently produces 3.5 MMSCMD of gas in Tripura. The ONGC has many years back formed the ONGC Tripura Power Company (OTPC) and set up the 726 MW electricity generation capacity Palatana gas-based power plant at Udaipur in Tripura’s Gomati district.

Two separate units of the OTPC (363.3 MW X 2) were inaugurated by former President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2013 and 2014, respectively.