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Ranjit Rath

Chairman & Managing Director, Oil India Limited

Search every verified Ranjit Rath interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Ranjit Rath, Chairman and Managing Director of Oil India Limited (OIL) and Chairman of Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), has recently outlined the company's expansion and exploration plans. At OIL's Annual General Meeting, Rath stated that the company expects to invest ₹15,000 crore over the next three years for deepwater exploration, aligned with the Government of India's Samudra Manthan scheme. He reported that OIL has completed 2D and 3D seismic surveys across 48,000 square kilometers in the Mahanadi and Krishna-Godavari basins and plans to drill 60 deepwater wells up to 5,000 meters below the seabed. Rath also mentioned that OIL is drilling a well off the coast of Kerala-Konkan beyond 6,000 meters and has started exploratory drilling in the Cambay Basin. He affirmed that OIL's crude oil production guidance of 4 million metric tonnes for FY27 is on track, citing an 11% rise in production, and noted that a newly authorized Duliajan feeder line connecting to the northeast gas grid would help meet a 5 billion cubic meters gas production target. Regarding NRL, Rath announced a brownfield expansion of the refinery's capacity from 3 million to 9 million metric tonnes per annum, with commissioning planned by March 31, 2027. He highlighted NRL's operational performance, including over 100% crude throughput, 99% plant availability, and a record distillate yield of 87.25%. Rath also discussed the world's first 2G ethanol plant using bamboo as feedstock, which was commissioned in September 2025 and is currently in the stabilization phase. He stated that the plant's supply chain is in place and estimated an annual benefit of about ₹200 crore to local farmers in Assam. Rath added that NRL is executing a 360 KTPA polypropylene unit and laying a 1,635 km crude pipeline from Paradip to Numaligarh, which he said is expected to be commissioned by the end of the year.

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“We have completed the 2D and 3D seismic of our deep water and ultra deep water block which we had secured in OALP. Processing is underway right now. Basis our initial estimate, the petroleum system modeling studies that we have done, we envisage about 4+4 deep water wells to be drilled, for which we have created a corpus of about ₹15,000 crore. And this is well aligned with the flagship initiative of Government of In”

“As far as Oil India is concerned, we will continue to focus on exploration and production. We are looking at this year about 4 million metric ton production of crude oil. You talked about the pipeline in North East, we recently got an authorization of the Duliajan feeder line which will connect the gas fields of Oil India Limited to the North East gas grid and in turn to the national gas grid that will help us to eva”

“Recently the Union Cabinet has approved the Samudra Manthan, the National Deep Water Exploration Scheme with a capital outlay of 84,000 crore. Out of which 23,000 crore plus will be utilized for collection of data. That's an array of 160,000 line kilometer of 2D seismic at the first go followed by more 2D seismic and 3D seismic. And the target area is Eastern coast of the country and Andaman Basin.”

“We have secured about 40,000 sq km of area in the deep and ultra-deep water of Mahanadi and KG Basin. Four blocks are there. We have already completed 4,200 line km of 2D seismic and 5,003 km sq km of 3D seismic. As we speak the advanced processing is underway. If everything falls in line we would possibly spot the first deep water well made of 2027.”

“The geoscientist in me is very optimistic about the E&P potential of the country. As I've just told, we have one of the best regime in terms of exploration possibilities, and in terms of yet-to-find resources, because exploration has not happened yet in the deep and ultra-deep waters of India, where we could say that the offshore Mahanadi, offshore Bengal basin, offshore KG basin, though there has been discoveries an”

“Government of India as part of deep water exploration effort has also identified 3,200 cr rupees for undertaking four stratigraphic wells. Four stratigraphic well, one well in Andamanikoba, one well in Mahanadi deep water, one well in Bengal Puria basis offshore, one well in Sorestra offshore and it has mandated oil India and OGC to jointly carry out these drilling activities which will be reimbured from this corpus ”

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