Mangala Area - Field Participation History

Field Participation History

Royal Dutch Shell won the licensing round for Block RJ-ON-90-1 in 1992 from the Indian Government, entering into a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) with them.

In 1998, Royal Dutch Shell sunk a well in the area and put a logging tool probe (which detects hydrocarbons) down the bore. However, the electronic readings came up negative. A worker for Cairn Energy at the site (which then held a 10% stake in the leasehold) noticed that the probe was actually dripping in oil.

Subsequently, Cairn purchased 50% of Shell's leaseholding and the remaining 50% in 2002 for $7.25 million.

27% of this contract was then sold to Cairn Energy in 1998 in return for covering some historical costs and drilling the next exploration well. Cairn's stake increased to 50% in 1999 by offering in exchange to fund the second exploration well.

$100 million was spent by Cairn Energy on wells. In January 2004, 3.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent was found in Mangala, making it 2004's biggest discovery of on-shore oil in the world.

In 2005 the national Indian oil company ONGC exercised their right as part of the terms of the PSC to acquire a 30% stake in the two larger fields discovered to date. The company retains this option on all further discoveries in the block. 2006 saw a restructuring of Cairn Energy into three companies, Cairn Energy, Cairn India and Capricorn Energy. Block RJ-ON-90-1 was included in the assets of Cairn India, which was floated on the Indian stock market in the same year, raising almost $2 billion dollars.