Andamans Have Massive Energy Reserves, Says Hardeep Puri

• India is ramping up oil and gas exploration, focusing on the Andaman region.
• ONGC and the government are expanding efforts to tap untapped basins.
• India is securing energy through wider imports amid global challenges.

India is ramping up the push for traditional fossil fuel production with a strong focus on deep exploration, particularly in the Andaman region.

Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Puri stated that exploration in this area is moving forward and shows promise, calling it perhaps India's 'Guyana moment'. With 3.5 million sq km of sedimentary basins, only about 8% of this area has been explored so far.

The Minister stated, "There were parts of the sedimentary basin which were no-go areas. So one of the decisions which we took was that 1 million square kilometres of that sedimentary basin, which was no-go area, has suddenly been made available for E&P".

"We've also issued some of the largest bids on offer anywhere -- something like 2.5 lakh square kilometres of area has been offered out on bidding", he added.

Now the government is able to increase exploration over larger areas again with the most recent bidding round placed bids on about 38% of this untouched basin and possibly up to75% in a forthcoming bidding round.

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"An onshore well costs something like USD 4 million on an average. I'm talking about global rates and dollar rates being held at a particular constant. And an offshore well costs about USD 100 million... They (Guyana) dug 46 wells and they didn't find any oil. It's when they dug the 47th one, they found oil. And then it became the largest find", the Minister said.

The capital-intensive nature of exploring offshore reserves has caused a delay in India being able to do enough exploration as a whole. Nevertheless, ONGC is moving quickly and has drilled the biggest number of wells in 40 years this year.

It has made large discoveries of oil equivalents, including 4 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent at Suryamani and 1.2 million metric tonnes at Neelmani, as well as above average volumes of reserves recently discovered at depths close to 3,000 meters in other wells, and perhaps most importantly, there is much more exploration work underway again.

The apparent discoveries speak to the larger point of India's growing ability in the space of energy production, significant especially considering that India still relies on 80% of its oil and 50% of its natural gas from imports.

This represents an important challenge to overcome for India, especially as the country works to diversify its sources of imports and control its fortunes by importing oil and gas from multiple countries, particularly in this time of price volatility globally.