Under the “Samudra Manthan” programme, the government is set to fund seismic data acquisition, with the exercise to be led by the upstream regulator
Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), said one of the persons cited above, declining to disclose the size of the funding.
“The drilling of wells for data collection is highly capital-intensive, requiring federal support to execute the initiative. A decision is awaited on whether the government will fully or partially finance the exercise,” one of the persons cited above said.
The government is prioritising data acquisition in untapped offshore areas to attract foreign investment into India’s exploration sector, addressing repeated concerns by global players over the lack of adequate data for the country’s blocks.
“Adequate data is the first step in oil and gas exploration. Many of these blocks were earlier designated as ‘no-go’ areas, resulting in limited data availability. That gap is now being addressed,” said another person familiar with the matter.
The “no-go areas” refer to sedimentary blocks in India that were restricted from oil and gas exploration for decades, mainly due to concerns from defence, space, environmental, and strategic agencies. The government has opened nearly 1 million sq km of such offshore areas for exploration, marking a major policy shift.
Queries sent to Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) and DGH remained unanswered until the time of going to press.
The disruption in India’s energy supplies due to the West Asia crisis has triggered discussions around the country’s high dependency on imports of crude oil and petroleum products. India’s import dependence continues to rise, driven by increasing energy demand and stagnant domestic production.
India’s crude oil production fell for the eleventh consecutive year in 2025-26 (FY26), while natural gas output declined for the second straight year, primarily due to natural decline from oil fields and a lack of major new discoveries. In FY26, India’s import dependence stood at 89 per cent for crude oil and 51 per cent for natural gas, showed official data.
To boost domestic production, the government recently launched the eleventh round of the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP-XI), offering 21 oil and gas exploration blocks spread across 80,228 sq km. Meanwhile, the OALP-X round, which is yet to be concluded, has offered 25 blocks covering 182,000 sq km. The round is India’s largest offshore bid round so far, with 12 blocks located in ultra-deepwater areas and one in deepwater.
Meanwhile, a Marshall Islands-flagged LPG carrier, MT Sarv Shakti, carrying 46,313 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has safely crossed the Strait of Hormuz on May 2 and is expected to arrive at Visakhapatnam on May 13, said the government in a press release.
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