Patna: The Bihar government has provided a Petroleum Exploration License (PEL) to ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation) to check the availability of petroleum reserves in a 308 square-kilometre area of Samastipur district and 52.13 square-kilometre area of Buxar. The Bihar government gave approval to ONGC for oil exploration after the Government of India had sent a proposal.
The Bihar government approved an application of ONGC seeking license for petroleum exploration, after the corporation sought permission from Department of Mines and Geology. A letter has come to the Buxar district administration in this regard. The District Magistrate of Buxar said that the district administration has received a letter to the effect that there may be petroleum products in the Ganges basin.
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) estimates that Buxar and Samastipur may have large oil reserves. Speaking to ETV Bharat, Buxar District Magistrate Aman Sameer said that soon the work of site inspection will begin in collaboration with ONGC. "We have been asked by the department to inspect the areas where petroleum products are being estimated to be found. The recommendation was sent to the department, after which the state government gave the permission," the DM said.
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ONGC has initiated the process of analyzing the gravitational and magnetic force of the surveyed areas using earthquake data recording techniques. If the results come positive, the discovery of crude oil will start soon. Earlier in 2017-2018 as well, ONGC had hinted about the possibility of oil fields in Siwan, Purnea, and Buxar districts. The company had installed a camp in Simri village and dug the soil in the basin of Ganga river Rajpur Kalan Panchayat and Raghunathpur. The samples were sent to a testing lab in Hyderabad, however it did not continue the exploration.
Nityanand Rai, MP from Samastipur district and Minister of State (MoS) Home, Government of India, said in this regard that the "Government of India has given approval to Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, a Government of India undertaking, on Monday for exploration of petroleum products in the Ganga basin of Samastipur. It is estimated that petroleum reserves will be found. Oil exploration is to be done in Samastipur in a 308 km square area with state-of-the-art technology. If the survey gives positive results, then the excavation work will be started."
Rai further said that sufficient reserves of oil in the Ganges basin passing through Samastipur district were being estimated long ago, but this time after the survey, this data will be displayed whether there is oil, and if so, then what is going to be the approximate cost to extract it.
