Prashant Modi, MD & CEO of Great Eastern Energy Corporation Ltd, a pioneer in the field of coal bed methane in India, stated the company aims to invest roughly USD 2 billion (Rs 15,000 crore) in shale gas exploration at its Raniganj South block in West Bengal.
“We want to recreate in shale what we did for CBM,” he said. “We pioneered exploration, production, and development of CBM in India.”
CBM (Coal Bed Methane) is gas trapped below coal seams.
GEECL signed the first CBM contract in India for the Raniganj South block on May 31, 2001. “We were the first to commercialise CBM in July 2007,” he said.
Prior to this, the firm’s CBM block was under an agreement with Coal India Ltd. since 1993. At that time, CBM was practically not present in Asia and was still at a nascent stage worldwide.
“We have a huge potential of shale resource of up to 6.63 trillion cubic feet (TCF) in our block,” he said. “We are awaiting the amendment to our petroleum mining lease for shale exploration from the West Bengal government. Post that, we plan to drill some shale core wells to assess the geological and other technical factors.”
