According to an informed source, Oil India Limited has eventually packed out of the oil prospect areas looking to find crude oil reserves in the Dhansiri Valley.
Older Oil Prospects
The earlier attempt to drill into the anticline at the Khelma block in 2011-12 petered out due to certain mysterious issues.
The rig at the so-called civilian area at Doldoli reaching about 2800 meters hit the bedrock. The well has been capped and the rig will be on its way to neighboring Dima Hasao district.
Another spot, two kilometers South of Doldoli well had received forest and environmental clearance but the working condition fouled, as bogus claims for compensation of nonexistent villages appeared.
State Collection
The Net Asset Value of the area required for the drilling site must go to State coffers and equivalent area must be given to the forest department for replenishment. The effort launched with much fanfare is now wrecked.
The pernicious practice of extraction of crude petroleum in a unit for solid i.e. metric tons instead of American barrels would still cheat the host signatory in the memorandum of understanding, with incomplete quorum.
British Records
The earlier British records mentioned finding oil seepages in the Lumding area. Way back in 1995-96 a scientific paper by the United States Geological Survey mentioned or indicated the possibility of gas at Doldoli.
It’s surprising that the geo physical data analyzed by petroleum expert Schlumberger has been kept a secret.
Naga Schuppen Belt
By any commonsense, the areas under prospect are bang on the zone of the Naga Schuppen Belt (The Schuppen belt of north-east India forms the outermost fringe of the mobile belt of the Assam- Arakan basin (Ranga Rao and Samanta, 1987).
This North East–South West trending belt is bounded by Naga thrust in the north-west and Disang thrust in the south–east (Evans, 1964). All the production oil wells from the Geleki South westward are in this Belt.
It took a long time to declare the oil prospect worthless.
India oil refinery
