Indian cabinet approves $8.8B to expand offshore oil and gas exploration

The Indian cabinet has approved investments of up to Rupees 840 billion ($8.8 billion) over the next five years to advance oil and gas exploration in the offshore segment, a move that would bring the country closer to energy self-sufficiency, according to a petroleum ministry statement on July 31.

With the newly approved investments to be made until fiscal year 2030-31 (April-March), the National Offshore Exploration Scheme is expected to catalyze reserve accretion of over 600 million metric tons of oil equivalent, the statement said. The scheme is expected to stimulate investments across the exploration and production value chain, create long-term opportunities for the industry and drive innovation and economic growth, according to the statement.

The scheme will also support large-scale acquisition, processing and interpretation of high-quality seismic data, accelerated deepwater and ultra-deepwater exploratory drilling, scientific drilling in frontier basins, development of common offshore production and evacuation infrastructure, and the establishment of an integrated oil and gas manufacturing and services zone, the statement said.

Over the past decade, the government has undertaken transformative reforms across the upstream sector, including opening nearly all offshore acreage for exploration, modernizing the legislative and contractual framework, and strengthening the National Data Repository, the statement said.

"Building on a series of upstream sector reforms, the scheme will drive offshore exploration through strategic investments in seismic surveys, deepwater and ultra-deepwater drilling, scientific exploration of frontier basins, common offshore infrastructure and an integrated energy services ecosystem," Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said in a social media post on LinkedIn.