Silchar, June 8: A new era is set to unfold on the exploration scenario for hydrocarbons in the Cachar area in the Assam-Arakan oil basin.

A multinational oil major, the London-headquartered Premier Oil, is charting out a plan to embark on high-tech drilling in search of both natural gas and oil in October at Ramnagar, a potential hydrocarbon-bearing area 10 km west of here.

Tim Green, general manager (drilling) of Premier Oil, who visited the drill site at Ramnagar on a few occasions early this week, said his company would deploy a large high-tech rig for the drilling chore at this site.

He said the rig has already been booked on a cargo vessel at Brighton in the south of England for transportation to Chittagong port in Bangladesh.

Green said he would soon visit Bangladesh to explore the possibility of carting this rig in its dismantled form either through the river route or by road up to the river port at Badarpur near this town.

Sources in Premier Oil said the drilling exercise would take about two years to reach its goal of hitting the hydrocarbon reservoirs underground.

On Monday, Sontosh Mohan Dev, local Congress MP and Union minister for heavy industries and public enterprises, visited the Ramnagar site along with Green and assured of all co-operation from the Centre.

Green said measures would be taken to ensure that the project remains environment-friendly and the displaced families get adequate compensation.

Sources said Premier Oil has decided to spend Rs 110 crore during the preliminary stages of oil exploration at the Ramnagar site.

The Badarpur geological structure, under which Ramnagar falls, is marked by high underground gas pressure. This is why the Badarpur Oil Company, a wing of the Burma Oil Company of England, which carried out the extensive drilling in Badarpur uplands during World War II, failed to make any breakthrough in its drilling for extraction of oil.

But in this renewed effort for harnessing the hydrocarbon in Badarpur structure, the Premier Oil appeared to be very much optimistic about finding both gas and oil there.