Samudra Manthan Mission: India’s ₹84,084-Crore Push for Deep-Sea Hydrocarbon Exploration

Context: Details emerged regarding the operationalisation of the ₹84,084-crore Samudra Manthan (National Offshore Exploration Scheme) to expand India’s hydrocarbon exploration into deep and ultra-deep offshore frontier waters.

• The initiative targets the Mahanadi, Andaman-Nicobar, Krishna-Godavari, Cauvery and Kutch basins to strengthen domestic energy exploration.

About Samudra Manthan Mission: India’s ₹84,084-Crore Push for Deep-Sea Hydrocarbon Exploration

What it is?

• The Samudra Manthan Mission (National Offshore Exploration Scheme) is a Central Sector initiative of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas with an outlay of ₹84,084 crore till FY 2030–31 to explore hydrocarbons in India’s deep and ultra-deep offshore basins.

Aim: To de-risk and accelerate offshore hydrocarbon exploration, add over 600 MMTOE of recoverable reserves, raise domestic production to 80 MMTOE annually, and reduce India’s crude oil import dependence.

Key Features:

• Deepwater Drilling Support: Allocates ₹43,200 crore for 60 exploration wells, covering up to 50% of eligible drilling costs, capped at ₹675 crore per well.
• Seismic Exploration: Provides ₹28,534 crore for offshore 2D/3D seismic surveys, data processing and geological interpretation to identify prospective hydrocarbon structures.
• Shared Offshore Infrastructure: Earmarks ₹10,000 crore for common subsea facilities and evacuation pipelines to make isolated offshore discoveries commercially viable.
• Priority Offshore Basins: Targets the Mahanadi, Andaman-Nicobar, Krishna-Godavari, Cauvery and Kutch-Mumbai basins for deep and ultra-deep exploration.
• Domestic Supply Chain: Provides ₹2,000 crore for indigenous equipment and service clusters under Make in India, alongside ₹350 crore for monitoring and regulatory support.

India’s Energy Vulnerability & Upstream Trajectory

• Massive Import Dependency: India is the world’s third-largest consumer of crude oil, running an annual import bill of nearly $144 billion (approximately ₹13 lakh crore).
• Natural Depletion of Legacy Basins: Mature domestic fields (such as Mumbai High) experience natural production declines of 6% to 7% annually, making continuous new discoveries necessary to sustain domestic energy output.
• Policy Architecture Evolution: Over the past decade, upstream reforms moved from the old New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) and Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) to the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP, 2016), Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP), Revenue Sharing Contracts (RSCs), and the National Data Repository (NDR).
• Opening No-Go Acreage: The government opened nearly 99% of offshore areas previously classified as No-Go (due to defense or maritime restrictions), releasing over 1 million sq. km of India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) for commercial exploration.

Geographical Focus Areas: From Frontier to Proven Basins:

• Mahanadi Offshore Basin (Odisha) — Immediate Deepwater Test:
  • First appraisal well (MN-DWN18-1-HD) spudded in July 2026 as part of a four-well appraisal campaign to test earlier gas discoveries made by ONGC in areas where up to 94% of the acreage was previously classified as No-Go.
  • Acts as the primary testing ground for the ₹10,000-crore shared infrastructure model.
• Andaman-Nicobar Basin — Frontier Deepwater Hunt:
  • Estimated hydrocarbon resource base of 371 MMTOE (2017 Resource Assessment Study). Four blocks awarded under HELP, with another four blocks (47,058 sq. km) offered under OALP-X.
  • Ultra-deepwater operations by ONGC and Oil India target water depths down to 5,000 meters.
  • ONGC’s ANDW-7 well in the East Andaman Back-Arc encountered traces of light crude, condensate, C-5 neo-pentane trip gases, and reservoir-quality facies, demonstrating an active thermogenic petroleum system analogous to producing systems in North Sumatra and Myanmar.
• Krishna-Godavari & Cauvery Basins — Pushing Deeper:
  • Expands established offshore provinces into ultra-deepwater acreage, including the KG-UDWHP block (1,199.64 sq. km under OALP Round VIII).
  • Supported by technical collaboration agreements between ONGC and global majors like ExxonMobil.
• Western Offshore Belt (Kutch & Mumbai Offshore):
  • Addresses high evacuation and development costs in the Kutch and Saurashtra basins through common infrastructure sharing under OALP Round VIII allocations.

Strategic Targets & Macroeconomic Impact:

• Hydrocarbon Potential vs. Proven Reserves: While India’s eastern and western offshore basins possess an estimated geological potential exceeding 5,600 MMTOE in water depths up to 3,000 meters, these are not proven reserves.
• Targeted Reserve Additions: Samudra Manthan aims to convert prospects into >600 MMTOE of proven recoverable reserves, expanding India’s verified resource base from 1.6 billion to 2.2 billion tonnes of oil equivalent (TOE).
• Production Expansion: Targets an increase in domestic oil and gas output from ~62 MMTOE to 80 MMTOE annually.
• Import Bill Reduction: Successful commercial production is projected to cut crude import expenditure by nearly ₹1 lakh crore (~$11–12 billion) annually, strengthening India’s current account balance.

Major Challenges in Deepwater Exploration:

• High Technological & Financial Risks: Deepwater (up to 3,000 m) and ultra-deepwater (up to 5,000 m) drilling requires advanced drillships, subsea blowout preventers, and seismic imaging, with individual well costs running into hundreds of crores without guaranteed discovery.
• The Stranded Discovery Bottleneck: In frontier areas like Kutch and Mahanadi, discoveries often remain monetarily unviable because building dedicated deepwater pipelines and processing platforms for isolated fields is cost-prohibitive.
• Extreme Environmental & Marine Challenges: The Bay of Bengal and Andaman Seas face frequent cyclones, strong underwater currents, and high-pressure/high-temperature (HPHT) reservoir conditions that cause operational delays.
• Geological Conversion Gap: Transitioning from geochemical indications (such as thermogenic gas traces in ANDW-7) to commercially producible reserves requires multiple rounds of appraisal, testing, and capital commitments.

Way Ahead:

• Operationalizing Shared Subsea Hubs: Deploy the ₹10,000-crore common infrastructure corpus to construct multi-user offshore collection manifolds and shared riser systems, enabling smaller satellite fields to pool production.
• Deepening Partnerships with Global Oil Majors: Leverage technical collaborations with experienced deepwater operators (e.g., ExxonMobil, BP, TotalEnergies) to de-risk ultra-deep HPHT drilling in the Andaman Back-Arc.
• Accelerating Fast-Track Environmental Clearances: Establish specialized single-window statutory desks within the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) for offshore exploration blocks to prevent rig standby costs.
• Building Indigenous Subsea Supply Chains: Utilize the ₹2,000-crore manufacturing allocation to develop domestic fabrication capacity for subsea trees, manifolds, and intervention vessels under Make in India.

Conclusion:

The ₹84,084-crore Samudra Manthan mission marks a shift from conventional shallow-water exploration to frontier deepwater basins. By combining drilling subsidies with shared offshore infrastructure, the initiative addresses the high costs that have historically left offshore discoveries undeveloped. Converting frontier geological indicators in the Mahanadi and Andaman basins into commercially viable production will be crucial to reducing import vulnerability and securing India’s energy future.