Bengal Energy Ltd, a Canadian oil and gas exploration and production company based in Calgary, said Friday it is joining an Indian consortium for exploration in the Cauvery basin.

Headed by Chayan Chakrabarty, the Canadian company said it will join the Gas Authority of India (GAIL) and the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation to undertake exploration in 234,000 acres of the Cauvery Basin.

It said the Tamil Nadu government has formally signed a four-year agreement with the consortium in which GAIL has a 40 percent stake, Bengal Energy and the Gujarat petroleum Corporation 30 percent each.

Exploration work is expected to begin immediately, the company said.

'In the first year of the four-year agreement, Bengal and its partners plan to undertake an aggressive exploration of 2,300 km of air-borne magnetometry and reprocessing 1,700 km of 2D seismic data,'' the Calgary-based company said.

It said exploratory targets which have already been identified will entail drilling from 500 to 2,000 metres. After exploratory tests, actual drilling will begin next year.

'Two untested basement highlands cover nearly one-third of the block. These highlands are believed prospective for granite wash oil targets, an established play type in the Cauvery Basin,'' the company statement said.

'The Cauvery Basin is an active producing basin in the southern part of the east coast of India. The basin covers approximately 250,000 square kilometers and has 28 producing oil and gas fields,'' said the Canadian company which is currently focused on exploration in India and Australia.

'We look forward to working with strong local partners as we apply our technical and operational expertise in India's proven Cauvery Basin,'' said Bengal CEO Bradley Johnson.

(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)