PAST,PRESENT & FUTURE JOURNEY OF HYDROCARBON IN ASSAM

The history of oil exploration and the journey of its extraction in Assam has been the result of British colonial expansion policies that always intended to augment financial health of Great Britain by means of extorting natural resources particularly in the colonies of the third world. The colonial ruler’s first choice was to find such resources in those places where they could easily avoid any kind of human contact and conflict and could establish an un-interrupted supply of natural resources. Therefore in India, the largest colony of British Empire till the middle of last century, the initial exploration was made in untouched virgin forest, barren lands and those frontier regions where the human settlement rarely existed.

- Kishor Kumar Kalita

Going behind such rule of colonisation British administration after the annexation of Assam in the first quarter of 19th century started their resources related expedition in this region which eventually created another history in oil exploration in India. In April 1828, a young British officer, in charge of one of the upper Assam expeditions, ventured up the Dihing river, a tributary of Brahmaputra river and noticed muggy signs of oil on the surface of water. The officer recorded such observation in his official report. In 1865, Mr. H.B. Medicott, a Geologist was deputed to visit the coal areas of Assam. His report recommended experimental borings, to taste the value of oil at Makum, close to Margherita towards the south of Dihing River. It was only just seven years after Edwin L. Drake drilled the world's first oil well in 1859 at Titusville, Pennsylvania, USA, another historical discovery of oil took place in a remote corner of Assam in the midst of the dark and dense jungles, by a group of avant-garde pioneers searching for black gold. The story of oil exploration in Assam is a mixture of both oral and written documentation. The authentic version of the story goes like such.