Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has announced that it has discovered India’s first significant shale gas reserve, according to a report by the Hindustan Times.

According to the report, the discovery was made at Durgapur-Ranigunj in the Burdwan district of West Bengal. The shale formation measures approximately 12,000 square-kilometers in size and can be compared to shale targets in Canada and the United States.

“This is a significant find [and] is cent per cent natural gas,” said PK Mahato, a scientist at Dehradun’s Keshava Deva Malviya Institute of Petroleum Exploration. “It can easily be utilized for commercial uses.”

According to Mahato, the formation contains enough gas reserves to supply the country for up to 50 years, depending on how much it is explored and drilled.

Though it is a significant discovery, it may be a while until the resources can be extracted.

“[Extraction] will all depend on the policy of the government,” added Mahato. “Commercial exploration will be allocated through bidding and I do not think the bidding process will start before the end of 2011.”

Though this is only the first shale gas discovery in the country, ONGC estimates that India holds between 600 and 2,000 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of total reserves.