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.