Oil India advances deepwater exploration and biofuel innovation

It's always a pleasure talking to you. Thank you very much for having me. Now, Oil India's entry into new offshore explorations such as Mahanadi, Andaman, and the Kerala Kon basins has opened a new frontier in terms of the energy security journey for India.

I totally agree with you. In 2022, we had 1 million square kilometers of area which was earlier a no-go zone for India that was unlocked. It's primarily the exclusive economic zone of the Indian east coast and west coast and the Andaman Nicobar basin. Unfortunately, we had not done enough because those areas were not available. But if you look at the last couple of OLP bid rounds, specifically OLP 9, Oil India got about 40,000 square kilometers of area in the deep waters of Mahanadi and KG basin. And as far as our preparedness in terms of offshore is concerned, through previous OLP rounds, we have got two blocks on either side of Andaman Nicobar Island. Those are shallow water blocks and we also have got a Kerala Konan block which is a shallow water. Going forward, we are looking forward to this OLP 10 round where we will have about 1.82 lakh square kilometers of area which is on offer, about 90% of it is in the offshore areas. So that is the mainstay or main focus. And you rightly said this is a newer horizon. As part of our preparedness, while we are carrying out exploratory drilling, having done seismic API in our shallow water blocks, we have also done 2D seismic in our 40,000 square kilometers area in Mahanadi and KG. 3D seismic is underway. About 4,297 kilometers of 2D seismic has been done. In addition, we have done petroleum system modeling studies which gives us enough confidence to undertake at least a certain number of deep water and ultra deep water drilling, which we will finalize the locations and carry out after we complete the 3D seismic API.

I totally agree. In terms of the deepest oil well, if you look at the discovery in this part of the globe, the first discovery happened at a depth of about 50 meters, the Digboi oil well in 1889. As the technology improved, we did deeper seismic imaging and went to deeper horizons. Today, Oil India Limited is drilling 5,500 to 6,000 meters depth and we are producing from those depths as well. This gives us two approaches: one, we are maintaining the production of the depleted field and also keeping the production arrested from decline, and on top of that we are reporting 2 to 3% more production. Last year we had the highest ever production since inception of Oil India Limited based on additional workover operations and drilling. This year we are hopeful of scripting another milestone in terms of highest ever drilling as part of our exploratory and production efforts. Similarly, for offshore exploration, as part of our Andaman Nicobar, we have drilled 3,600 meters depth. The third well we are drilling targets 4,200 meters. On the west coast Kerala Konan, that is a shallow water block with 60 meters water depth, and we are drilling 6,000 meters depth. We have reached 1,000 meters and our target horizon is 6,000 meters. We are strongly convinced this will yield results that give us assurance of a possible discovery.