Essar Oil and Gas Exploration and Production (EOGEPL) will invest up to Rs 3,000 crore on its coal bed methane (CBM) block in Raniganj, West Bengal. The move aligns to raising gas production, and contributing to India's gas output to five percent in the next five years.

The company has an acreage of 500 sq km, and will tap portions further, as only harnessed 70 sq. km has been harnessed. The Raniganj field has a total in-place resource of four trillion cubic ft. (TCF) of gas and only 92 billion cubic ft. (BCF) or 0.92 TCF has been extracted in the last 10 years.

Moreover, the company will drill new wells and expects to raise the production to almost four to five million standard cubic meters of gas from the current 0.93 million standard cubic meters. So far, it has invested Rs 500 crore towards the drilling of new wells. CBM, a natural gas stored or absorbed in coal seams contains 90-95 percent methane.