ONGC Produced India’s First Shale Gas at Icchapur

State-run Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) declared on 25 January 2011 that it produced first shale gas in the India at Icchapur in Durgapur district of West Bengal. It is a significant breakthrough as India became the first Asian country where gas was discovered from shale outside USA and Canada. ONGC had started drilling the first shale gas well at Icchapur village on 26 September 2010.ONGC awarded a contract to Schlumberger for the pilot project at icchapur. The other regions in India which has shale gas deposits are- Assam,Gujarat,Rajasthan,the Gangetic plain,the Cambay basin and the Gondwana basin. ONGC is also undertaking Rs 128-crore pilot project for exploration of shale gas in the Damodar basin in Jharkhand and intends to drill three wells by 31March 2012.

Shale gas is non-conventional natural gas reserves found in non-porous rock and requires fracking technology to extract gas from shale.