HVK Archives: Deccan trap may be floating on oil
Deccan trap may be floating on oil - The Indian Express (Nagpur)
Press Trust of India
()
30 June 1997
Title: Deccan trap may be floating on oil
Author: Press Trust of India
Publication: The Indian Express (Nagpur)
Date: June 30, 1997
Discovery of thick Pediments under the basalt cover of Saurashtra in
Gujarat have tremendously raised hopes of finding huge oil reserves under
the hitherto unexplored Deccan trap, according to scientists at the
National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI)here.
The NGRI is one of 40 laboratories under the Council of Scientific and
Industrial Research.
NGRI Director Harsh Gupta told PTI that the institute is all set to launch
a Rs 36 crore national mission to map the sediments under the entire Deccan
Trap to help the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) identify potential
sites for drilling.
"If we find oil under the Deccan trap, it could make a tremendous impact on
the whopping annual oil import bill of Rs. 27,000 million," Gupta said.
The Deccan trap covering Maharashtra, Gujarat and parts of Madhya Pradesh
is a region where the surface is covered by basaltic lava from volcanic
eruptions.
Scientists had all along suspected that the lava might be covering Mesozoic
sediments dating back to some 100 million years.
Globally more than 50 per cent of the oil is recovered from Mesozoic
formations but India has so far not found any oil from Mesozoics because
the location and thickness of such sediments under the basalt cover could
not be assessed with conventional seismic methods.
NGRI scientists said that new geophysical techniques developed at the
Institute have now made it possible. to penetrate the overlying basalt
cover and estimate the thickness of sediments below.
The thicker the sediments, greater are the chances of finding oil.
Gupta said a three year Rs 7 crore study, sponsored by ONGC, covering the
entire 80,000 sq. Km. area of Saurashtra has revealed the presence of
buried Mesozoic sediments more than one kilometer thick. He said the
finding of such thick sediments augured well for oil discovery.
Encouraged by the success of the Saurashtra project, NGRI is getting ready
to map the Mesozoic sediments under the entire Deccan trap as a national
mission, Gupta said. More than half of the Rs 36 crores required for
mission would come from the oil industry and the rest from the government.
Gupta said the mission the largest to be undertaken by NGRI, Would witness
the setting up of 10,000 new gravity stations and deployment of the latest
equipment.
He said the project would be completed in four years by which time ONGC
will have a three dimensional map of potentially oil bearing sediments
underlying the whole of Deccan trap.
This 3-D Map will tell ONGC where exactly to look for oil instead of
drilling through the basalt cover at random and at huge cost, Gupta said.
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