INTERVIEW: ONGC, Invenire Energy revive oil, gas output at Cauvery Basin field after 14 years

India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. and Invenire Energy group companies have commenced oil and gas production from the PY-3 field in the Cauvery Basin, marking the revival of output from this field after a 14-year hiatus, Invenire Chairman Manish Maheshwari said May 26.

The resurgence of output coincides with India's ongoing upstream reforms, aimed at facilitating partnerships between private and foreign companies with state-run firms to counteract the decline in oil and gas production, which has averaged over 1% annually over the past decade.

"India offers a rich pipeline of early upstream monetization opportunities. We are committed to supporting India's growth by advancing the development of our existing portfolio across the prolific Mumbai High, Cambay, Cauvery, Assam Arakan and Satpura basins," Maheshwari told Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Maheshwari said that a joint venture between ONGC and Invenire group companies -- Hardy Exploration & Production (India) Inc. and Invenire Petrodyne Ltd. -- has initiated production from the PY-3 field, which was originally brought onstream in 1997, but has been shut since July 2011.

Since 2021, a multiphase revised field development plan has been implemented to revive and accelerate production. Phase 1 of the plan has been completed. This included integrity assessment, conditioning, and activation of the subsea well, installation of new subsea infrastructure, and hook-up to the floating production, storage and offloading vessel Svetah Venetia.

The FPSO is being used to process and separate oil, gas and water. The oil produced is stored on the FPSO and offloaded to shuttle tankers for transport to refineries.

"Phase 2 of the field development plan involves drilling additional wells and the application of enhanced oil recovery techniques to boost output from this prolific field, which yields light, sweet crude oil," Maheshwari said.

Output potential

ONGC has discovered seven of India's eight producing basins and holds the largest exploration acreage and mining license portfolio in the country. It has consistently maintained a reserve replenishment ratio above one for the past decade and accounts for 63% of India's oil and natural gas production. ONGC also oversees seven non-operated joint ventures, including RJ-ON-90/1 and PY-3 fields.

Invenire Petrodyne, formerly Tata Petrodyne Ltd., has seven upstream oil and gas assets either in production or under development in India and Indonesia. Hardy Exploration & Production first brought the PY-3 field into production in 1997 using floating production facilities and subsea wellhead completions.

"India is well endowed with 26 sedimentary basins spread across 3.36 million sq km," Maheshwari said. "While 3.6 billion barrels of crude oil and 1 Tcm of gas reserves have been established in just 0.5 million sq km of acreage, what really is appealing is the size of the yet-to-be-established prize, which stands beyond 200 billion barrels of oil equivalent."

According to analysts at S&P Global Commodity Insights, India's upstream output has declined at an average annual rate of 1.1% over the past decade due to the natural depletion of mature fields operated by state-run producers, delays in monetizing existing discoveries and a reduced number of new discoveries.

Policy reforms

In recent years, India has implemented a series of upstream reforms, including granting greater marketing freedom to producers. Previously, operators of fields could not directly sell locally produced crude in the market and required government permission to sell crude and condensate within the country. The new policy has ended the government's role in allocating domestic crude and condensate output.

Under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy, or OALP, upstream companies can now carve out areas for oil and gas exploration. Explorers can submit an expression of interest for any area throughout the year, and the designated areas are subsequently auctioned.

Earlier in 2025, India's parliament granted final approval to amend the Oil Fields (Regulation and Development) Act of 1948, expanding the scope of its exploration policy beyond petroleum and natural gas. The amendment also aims to relax regulations to attract private and overseas investors to the sector.

Commodity Insights analysts said the changes to the Oilfields Act aim to create a more investor-friendly environment and enhance the global competitiveness of future oilfield contracts by addressing the long-standing concerns of upstream companies.

Maheshwari said that "the government has ushered in transformative policy reforms -- authentic in intent and actionable in context for the upstream sector. Focusing on solutions and resolutions, the emphasis is now on quickly bringing hydrocarbon molecules in a safe and sustainable manner -- from existing and new discoveries -- to the market."

In April, BP signed an exploration licensing deal in India, as part of a consortium with ONGC and Reliance Industries Ltd., making it the only international company to secure upstream contracts in the country, potentially whetting the appetite of more global majors to participate in future bidding rounds.

The contract for a new exploration license under the consortium consisted of ONGC, holding a 40% stake, Reliance with a 30% stake and BP with the remaining 30% stake for block GS-OSHP-2022/2 in the Saurashtra Basin as part of the ninth round of OALP.

"The launch of open acreages, discovered fields, coal bed methane and city gas distribution rounds are real-time opportunities for integrated energy investors across the globe," Maheshwari said. "We believe India will drive global energy demand, with the country's share doubling to 12% by 2050."