"A Kazakhstan geophysical firm would begin 2D seismic survey by November this year on the Brahmaputra river before we begin exploration work to look for oil," Mulkh Raj Pasrija, chairman-cum-managing director of Oil India Limited (OIL), told IRNA. OIL, India's premier state-owned oil exploration firm, said the survey was likely to cover an area of about 2,000 sq. km. "This is a proven oil-rich zone and we are confident of striking crude along the Brahmaputra," Pasrija said. The 2,906-kilometer (1,816-mile) river -- one of the longest in Asia -- traverses Tibet, India and Bangladesh before emptying into the Bay of Bengal. India produces about 30 million tons of crude oil annually, with Assam accounting for about five million tons of the total. OIL, with its headquarters located in Assam, produces about 3.2 million tons of crude in the state annually. "We have launched an aggressive attempt to accelerate oil production in the country with a target to enhance our output in Assam by at least one million tons by next year," the OIL chairman said. The company has hired several foreign firms to revitalize aging oilfields and carry out exploration works in new areas. "For the first time in Assam, we are using some new techniques like horizontal drilling and J-bend methods to augment oil production. These new techniques are expected to yield at least three times more oil than the conventional vertical drilling system," OIL Explorations Director S.K. Patra told IRNA. The company also plans to increase natural gas production from 5.7 million cubic meters to 7 million cubic meters per day by the end of next year. Assam has over 1.3 billion tons of proven crude oil and 156 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves of which about an estimated 58 percent of these hydrocarbon reserves are yet to be explored. Assam accounts for nearly 50 percent of India's on-shore crude oil production and has the highest success ratio in the world with 70 percent of the exploration sites yielding oil, the OIL chairman said. Assam is home to the world's oldest operating oil refinery, the Digboi Refinery, established in 1901. PIN/IRNA