The Ashoknagar oilfield in West Bengal has added a QPS separator to ONGC’s oil and natural gas project, enabling water and gas to be separated from crude oil at the site before the processed crude is transported to the Haldia refinery. Commercial crude oil extraction has already begun at the North 24 Parganas project.
The new machine was inaugurated on Sunday by Shamik Bhattacharya, Rajya Sabha member and president of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s West Bengal unit, during a visit to inspect the ONGC facility. The QPS separator is intended to support the initial handling and processing of crude extracted from the Ashoknagar oilfield.
According to the report, crude oil extracted from Ashoknagar was previously sent directly to a refinery. With the separator now in operation, water and different gases mixed with the crude will be removed at Ashoknagar. The water- and gas-free crude will then be transported by tanker to the Haldia refinery.
Bhattacharya has been in contact with various ministries and departments over the early commissioning of crude oil extraction at the field and has also raised the matter in Parliament. During his inspection, he alleged that letters sent to the previous state government had not received a positive response and that insufficient initiative by the earlier administration contributed to delays in bringing the oilfield into operation.
He said political differences should not affect the use of the state’s mineral and natural resources. “There should be no politics over our mineral and natural resources. There will be no political division here,” Bhattacharya said, according to the report. He also described the oil recovered from Ashoknagar as being of very high quality and said the resource belonged to the entire state.
The project’s progress is significant because it adds an on-site separation stage to the movement of crude from the oilfield to the refinery. The new arrangement is expected to reduce the volume of untreated material transported by tanker, although the supplied report does not provide details on the separator’s capacity, operating cost or expected production volumes.
Bhattacharya said approximately Rs 1,100 crore had been invested by the Central government in the Ashoknagar project so far. He expressed the expectation that full-scale operation would bring socio-economic changes to Ashoknagar and the wider North 24 Parganas district.
The project’s next operational milestone will be the transition to full-scale production. The supplied report does not specify a completion date, projected output or the remaining approvals and infrastructure required before the facility reaches that stage.
