Cairn Energy NEWS

The Cairn Oil & Gas, India’s largest private oil and gas exploration and production company, has signed a contract with Baker Hughes, an energy technology company, to harness geothermal energy from its repurposed oil and gas wells in Rajasthan. On successful execution, the contract will help Cairn Oil & Gas co-produce up to 2.4 MW of electricity along with oil and gas and offset 17,000 tons of greenhouse gas per annum. This contract follows Cairn Oil & Gas’ recently announced ESG roadmap where it is committed to becoming a net-zero company by 2050, a spokesperson said here on Friday.

A 2012 tax law gave New Delhi the power to claim back taxes from enterprises that had acquired assets of local companies in past deals.

During the drilling of the well, four hydrocarbon zones were encountered in the Dharvi Dungar (DD) formation, the company noted. Cairn Oil & Gas, a subsidiary of the Vedanta group, has announced a new oil discovery in a key exploration block in Barmer, very close to its prolific Rajasthan block RJ-ON-90/1.

Cairn Oil & Gas on Wednesday said it has commenced oil production from NA #01 facility in Aishwariya Barmer Hills in Rajasthan. “The project is a first in Cairn’s tight oil portfolio with a growth potential to contribute 20 percent to the company’s vision production,” the company said in a statement. It is the largest horizontal well with a multi-frac development campaign of 37 wells in the Indian subcontinent which is the key enabler to unlock tight oil.

Cairn has signed an agreement to sell its entire Senegalese stake to Woodside Energy. Cairn at first was planning to sell its 40% of the Senegalese stake to Lukoil in a deal worth up to $400m, but Woodside had exercised its right to pre-empt the transaction on the same terms and conditions. Woodside Energy will hold a 68.3% stake in the main Sangomar deepwater project and a 75% stake in the remaining areas.

Exploration and development firm, Cairn Energy has entered into an agreement to farm out its stakes in Capricorn Norge to Solveig Gas. The deal will fetch Cairn $100m, apart from the customary working capital adjustments, upon completion of the transaction. Capricorn Norge owns a 10% interest in the Nova field, where Wintershall Dea is the operator. Cairn intends to use the proceeds from the transaction to fund its ongoing business.

Cairn Oil and Gas has planned to invest Rs 7,924 crore on various sectors of upstream over the next decade. The company has strategized the drilling of additional 123 exploration and development wells at Ravva oil field in Krishna Godavari basin off the Andhra coast. In the last financial year, the company's average daily working interest production from Ravva field declined by 13%.

India's natural resources major, Vedanta Ltd. witnessed major drop in profit in the recent quarter which ended in March. The company has reported a 46% drop in net profit to Rs 2,615 crore which was Rs 4,802 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. 32% of the drop in the firm's total income in this quarter made the income roll down to Rs 7,065 crore.

An arbitration case against the Government of India is adding heavily to Cairn Energy’s administration expenses. In its latest annual report, the British oil firm has revealed that the cost of fighting the arbitration against the Rs 10, 247 crore tax imposed by India nearly tripled in 2018, while it has lost investments and tax refunds pending final award. Cairn has so far spent approximately $ 22.9 million in 2018.

Cairn Energy, a Scottish oil firm has booked Stena Drilling for a UK North Sea exploration. Last time that Stena worked for Cairn was in 2017 off the coast in Senegal in 2017 and it involved the Stena DrillMAX unit. This time, Stena Don semi-submersible rig will be deployed for Cairn’s Chimera prospect in the third quarter. Cairn Energy presently owns 60% of Chimera.

According to bid information available with DGH, Vedanta-owned Cairn India will attract a penalty of $0.1 million if it fails to fulfil exploration commitment for the 41 oil blocks won under OALP. Award of blocks were based on the commitment to explore and drill for oil and gas, and government’s share in the hydrocarbons produced. DGH gave equal weightage to both these parameters.

In a recent briefing, Vedanta Chairman Anil Agarwal said that they are seeking consortia of US oilfield service companies to aid the development of 41 blocks in India. Accompanied by Cairn Chief Executive, Mr Agarwal met with executives from 70 services companies in Houston this week. The meeting aimed at encouraging the firms to establish a consortium to compete for contracts. Cairn won 41 of the 55 blocks auctioned in OALP.

Europe’s leading energy company, Carin Energy has reported £400 million loss in half-year. Admitting its mistakes, the company commented that regardless of its progress in North Sea this year, it has experienced heavy losses on “derecognition of financial assets”. Carin experienced pre-tax losses worth £383m in the first six month of 2018. CEO of the company has said that “Cairn has made strong progress across its balanced portfolio.”

Vedanta’s Cairn Oil and Gas has awarded the oilfield development contract for Mangala, Bhagyam and Aishwarya (MBA) fields to leading oilfield services provider, BHGE. The service provider will support Cairn with advanced technology solutions to deliver an integrated scope of oilfield services and equipment. The scope of the contract also involves the construction of 300 new wells and deployment of a chemical EOR programme.

In the year 2014, India had used a two year old legislation to raise a Rs.10, 247 crore retrospective tax demand on a decade old Cairn’s unit in the country. The British firm had initiated an international arbitration challenging the tax demand and the final hearing will begin in August, 2018 in The Hague.