This is the fourth block that Hardy holds in partnership with Reliance and the Company’s first onshore asset in India. The block provides further long-term potential to create significant shareholder value.

The AS-ONN-2000/1 exploration licence is located in the north eastern state of Assam, India, and north of Brahmaputra River. The exploration licence covers an area of 5,754 km2 and falls within the districts of Darrang and Sonitpur. The block is in phase one of the three-phase exploration licence. Phase I will expire in January 2011.

The topography of the area is primarily a plain of low relief and there is a reasonably established road network across the block. A national highway runs parallel to the Brahmaputra River and passes through the block. Different play types expected are structural (anticlinal and fault closures), stratigraphic (pinchout/wedgeout) within Palaeocene-Eocene and Gondwana packages and unconventional fractured/weathered basement.

Assam foreland constitute the shelf part of Assam – Arakan intermontane basin . It forms a northeast – southwest trending, largely alluvium covered – narrow, linear tract encompassing an area of 40,000 sq. km. It is bounded in the north by river Brahmaputra, in the southeast by the tertiary accretionary prism – Naga Schuppen belt, in the west by Mikir Shillong Massif and in the South by Dauk fault. The exploration block lies in the northern part of Brahmaputra River while in the southern part of Brahmaputra River most of the oilfields of ONGC are situated over a prospective area of 4,000 km².

Exploration activities since 1956 have resulted in establishing seven major fields. Most of these fields have reached mature stage of exploration for Mio-Pliocene reservoirs and are in the advanced phase of delineation and development.

Operations
In 2009 the Company acquired 390 line km of 2D data. The majority of the exploration block’s phase one minimum work programme has now been completed. GCA’s technical evaluation report noted that they consider ‘the Assam opportunity as a challenging, potentially attractive play extension and possible new play(s) opportunity with neighbouring oil discoveries in the sub-regional context’.

Hardy Oil and Gas plc © 2011