The Oil Museum of the World= The Well No. 01 “Dig” Boy turns to Digboi: the first oil well in India Digboi in Assam is an oil town that can be traced to the early 18th century, when oil was first discovered here. Digboi can proudly boast of two unique features: a 100-year-old extant oilfield and the worlds oldest operating oil refinery. The Digboi Refinery was set up at Digboi in 1901 by Assam Oil Company Ltd and Where I (Ajay Kumar) studied - Cotton College was declared open on May 27, 1901 by Sir Henry Stedman Cotton, K.C.S.I., the then-chief commissioner of the erstwhile British province of Assam. And where I Studied – It was also esated in Later on The Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOC) took over the refinery and marketing management of Assam Oil Company Ltd. with effect from 1981 and created a separate division... Let me go back pre independence of India – (1866-1947) - The exploration of hydrocarbon in India commenced in 1866 when Mr. Goodenough of McKillop Stewart Co. drilled a well near Jaypore in Upper Assam and struck oil. Mr. Goodenough, however, failed to establish satisfactory production. By 1882 the Assam Railway and Trading Company (ARTC), a company registered in London in 1881, with an objective to explore the rich natural resources of Upper Assam, acquired rights for exploration over about 30 sq miles in the same area. Sub-surface oil exploration activities started in the dense jungles of Assam in North-East India. The first commercial discovery of crude oil in the country was, however, made in 1889 at Digboi. In 1893, rights were granted to the Assam Oil Syndicate which erected a small refinery at Margharita to refine the oil produced at Margharita. A new company known as Assam Oil Company (AOC) was formed in 1899 with a capital of £310,000 headquartered at Digboi to take over the petroleum interests, including the Makum and Digboi; The earliest recorded reference of oil in Assam can be traced to Lieut. R Wilcox of the 46th Regiment Native Infantry who saw it as’… rising to the surface at Supkhong with great bubbling of gas and green petroleum…’ in the book Memoir of a survey of Assam and the Neighboring Countries executed in 1825-6-7-8. In 1921, UK based Burmah Oil Company (BOC) which had a successful oil exploration record in Burma, bought all the shares from ARTC and was appointed commercial and technical managers of AOC. By 1931, crude oil production has gone up to about 250,000 tonnes per annum and exploration activities were spread all over the Assam-Arakan region. Meanwhile another field was discovered at Badarpur in the Surma valley and because the discovering party lacked the capabilities to exploit the find, BOC provided technical knowhow, financial backing and managerial support. Barely seven years after Edwin L. Drake drilled the worlds first oil well in 1859 at Titusville, Pennsylvania, USA, history registered another exploration of the black liquid gold, in the largest continent. In 1867, a large group of men were engaged in laying railway tracks for the Assam Railway and Trading Co. Ltd. in an area very close to what is now the town of Digboi. They had to work in the dense forest where the only visitors were animals, birds and insects. The place is said to have smelt of the rain: soaked forest mingled with a heavy odour of something that smelt like oil. Legend has it that an elephant hauling logs from the forest returned with distinct traces of oil on its feet and trail. The excited owners of the elephant followed its footprints and found seepage of oil bubbling to the surface. ‘Dig, boy, dig!’, probably this is what the Englishman cried out to his men, hence the name Digboi. From that day, this tiny habitat, among the rolling hills of Assam found a place in the map of the world’s petroleum industry.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 18:07:27 +0000
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