Kolkata, March 4 (IANS) Essar Oil Ltd, India's second largest private refiner, Monday announced that it has received environmental clearance for developing its coal bed methane (CBM) gas field at West Bengal's Raniganj.
The central environment and forests ministry has granted phase III environmental clearance to Essar for its CBM gas field at Raniganj, allowing it to increase drilling to 650 wells, according to a company release here.
"This environmental clearance allows the full field development of the Raniganj block, excluding forest area, and will enable the firm to increase production to the targeted level of around 3 million standard cubic metres of gas per day (scmd), up from around 60,000 scmd currently," it said.
Essar Energy chief executive Naresh Nayyar said: "The final phase III environmental approval is an exciting milestone and is the key to us reaching peak production.
"We expect to grow the coal bed methane business significantly in the coming years as we utilise the learnings from Raniganj to develop our other four blocks," Nayyar added.
The company said it is awaiting a government decision on an appropriate commercial sales price for Raniganj, but in the meantime would continue to sell gas from the block at the approved test sales price.
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