Ministry Reveals Status of India's Crude Oil Production, New Exploration (Photo @Pixabay)
As the world’s third-biggest oil importer and consumer, India buys more than 80 % of oils from overseas. India has not discovered much crude oil reserves so far, making it one of the top importers of crude oil in the world.
It was in 1889 that India discovered its first oil deposits. Since then, the exploration has not yielded adequate results in the field. As of the latest data released by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, crude oil production in the country has been sluggish, with 19.471 metric tonnes produced in 2023. During 2022 and 2021, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), which churns out crude oil and natural gas for the Indian market, produced 19.584 and 2021-22 19.545 metric tonnes, respectively. 2023 saw a slight drop in the production.
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As of June 2024, India produced a total of 4.883 metric tonnes, according to the ministry’s reply to a question in Lok Sabha seeking the details of the country’s oil production. Referring to the query regarding the country’s efforts to explore more, the release said that ONGC, which works under the ministry and supplies crude oils, natural gas, and value-added products to major Indian oil and gas refining and marketing companies, has acquired 3,743.71Line Kilometre (LKM) of two dimensional (2D) and 30,417.91 Square Kilometre (SKM)of three dimensional(3D) seismic data.
The Ministry further said the ONGC drilled 276 exploratory wells, which established around172.54 Million Metric Tonne(MMT) of 2P (Proven and Probable) Oil Initially In-Place (OIIP) reserves with 46.58 MMT estimated ultimate recovery (EUR).
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Regarding the number of oil reserves from where oil is being extracted by ONGC, the Ministry said that ONGC possesses oil reserves in 9 sedimentary basins which have a total 2P (Proven and Probable) reserves of 320.89 MMT as of 01.04.2024.
