PM to open Cairn gusher today

India will cross a major milestone on its way to attaining energy security when PM Manmohan Singh on Saturday opens the tap of Cairn’s gusher in Rajasthan, the biggest oil find in India in decades. Coming within months of the country’s biggest gas discovery coming on stream off the Andhra coast, the flow of crude in Andhra will mark a change in the contour of the nation’s energy map. With the start of production from Mangla, the first among a group of three fields — Bhagyam and Aishwarya — India’s crude production will rise by a quarter in phases. At an optimum production level, the acreage is estimated to reduce India’s oil import bill by $6.8 billion, or roughly 7%. The acreage, where ONGC holds 30%, will be the biggest oilfield to come on stream since the state-run company’s Gandhar fields started pumping over two decades ago. Cairn has indicated that production will quickly touch 30,000 bpd (barrels per day) by the end of third quarter this year and reach a plateau of 175,000 bpd (8.75 million tonnes a year) in 2011. Goldman Sachs, however, has pegged the peak output at 190,000 bpd (9.5 million tonnes a year).