Petroleum Exploration in India - A perspective and Endeavours

Abstract

Indian oil industry has come a long way since the first oil discovery at Digboi in 1889 through concerted exploratory efforts.
Production of oil from a 5 barrels per day level from a single field in Assam has grown to more than 750000 barrels per day
from over 50 major oil and gas in seven sedimentary Basins and is projected to attain 1 million barrels per day mark in near
future. After Independence, oil and gas exploration was accorded high priority and was taken up by National, Private and
International oil companies across the 26 sedimentary Basins covering an area of about 3.14 million sq. kms. Of the 26
sedimentary Basins, 7 Basins are producing oil and gas today. Sedimentary Basins of India are categorised into four
categories based on their degree of hydrocarbon prospectivity as presently known. At present India’s estimated hydrocarbon
resource is of the order of 28 billion tonnes of oil equivalent (BTOE) and an Initial In-place volume of about 11.18 billion
tonnes of oil equivalent (BTOE). A project for re-assessment of the resource potential of Indian Sedimentary Basins has
been initiated by Government of India with active participation of ONGC, OIL and DGH in view of extensive availability
of new data from all the Sedimentary Basins.
Currentefforts are to enhance the production from category–I Basins with a focus on upgrading the Category-II Basins to
Category-I Basins. Present paper outlines the endeavours during last few years through opening up of new areas, especially
frontier areas of Proterozoic Basins of Vindhyan and Satpura, Deep offshore Basins of Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea
within Indian exclusive economic zone, Andaman fore-arc and back-arc Basins, unconventional sources of hydrocarbons
such as Basement exploration, CBM (Coal Bed Methane), shale oil and gas, gas hydrates and leveraging the technology
advances in Petroleum exploration.