Essar Oil and Petroleum SA consortium are all set to begin drilling an offshore exploratory well EP-1 in the exploration acreage BB-OS-5 located in south Saurashtra offshore. This will be the first offshore exploratory drilling effort by the consortium. The block BB-OS-5 is located in Mumbai offshore basin and lies in the west of Tapti gas fields. Essar Oil E&P division executive director SR Agrawal said that it will be a major achievement for the company. This first exploratory well will cost about $8 million to the consortium. The company has already spend $1 million till now. The exploration acreage was awarded to Essar Oil in the fifth round of exploration. After carrying out detailed geo-scientific investigations through seismic data acquisition, processing and re- processing, structural prospect and stratigraphic prospects were mapped. Subsequent to the completion the first phase of exploration, Essar has inducted Petrom SA (The Rumanian National Oil Company) with a 21% participating interest in this block. Petrom SA is the operator for this block. Although Petrom has only 21% participating interest in this block, they will be funding 50% of the cost of this second phase, as the company has high hopes in the prospectivity of this acreage.