New Delhi, March 24: Indian Oil and Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (a unit of ONGC) will buy Cairn India’s initial output from its Rajasthan oilfields. Production is expected to begin in a month.

“We have named some of the refineries as government nominees to take Cairn crude. The companies are discussing the price for the oil. We should have a decision on that soon,” petroleum secretary R. S. Pandey said today.

Cairn will initially produce 4,000-5,000 barrels of crude per day from its fields at Barmer, which will be transported by truck to Kandla on the Gujarat coast for shipment to Mangalore. IOC could take the crude to Panipat and Koyali, which is in Gujarat.

From the fourth quarter, the crude will be transported via a pipeline.

Output from the Mangala field, the first of the three fields Cairn is putting into production, would rise to 30,000 barrels per day in the July-September quarter.