First parcel of Mangala crude reaches Mangalore Refinery

New Delhi: The first parcel of crude from Cairn Energy's Mangala field reached the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) today morning. The parcel of 29,000 tonnes came just over a month after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh formally launched the Mangala oil fields in Rajasthan's Barmer district on Aug 29. It is the country's largest oil discovery in two decades. In a formal ceremony, Cairn Energy's regional manager and deputy general manager of marine operations handed over a crystal bottle containing the crude to MRPL managing director U.K. Basu, said a company release. The 29,000 tonnes of crude, which translates into 208,000 barrels, had been transported by road from the Mangala oil fields to Kandla port in Gujarat, where it was loaded on a leased Ukranian tanker and sent to the New Mangalore Port in Karnataka. According to the company statement, MRPL, a subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corp, will start processing the crude immediately. The refinery is likely to get two lakh tonnes of crude oil from Mangala in 2009, which will double to four lakh tonnes next year. "With the fast progressing phase III projects kicking in, MRPL will be able to process more of such crude," said the statement. Mangala's peak production of 125,000 barrels per day (bpd) will be reached in the first half of 2010. Along with the production at its Bhagyam and Aishwarya fields, the aggregate peak production by Cairn India will be 175,000 bpd or 20 percent of India's domestic production - enough to power 3.4 million cars daily or fill up 4.5 million cooking gas cylinders a month. The three fields are expected to save the country $1.5 billion annually as import bill over the next 10 years. It would also earn the government $30 billion across the life of the field by way of taxes, royalties and profit petroleum. (IANS)

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