Companies are planning to spend billions of dollars on offshore projects while also tapping technology for onshore fields as demand grows. As energy demand continues to outpace production, it's no wonder that India is aggressively pursuing the country's more than 50 Bbbl and 1.3 Tcm (47 Tcf) of proven oil and gas reserves both onshore and offshore. Companies such as state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) and Gujarat State Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (GSPC) along with Reliance Industries Ltd. and BP are planning to spend billions in offshore hydrocarbon pursuits, tackling deepwater prospects, while others such as Cairn India are tapping EOR technology to improve recovery rates at existing fields onshore. But there is much ground to cover. For the most part, India's sedimentary basins are largely unexplored. Yet not even the government's launch of a new exploration licensing policy about 15 years ago, which established the auction framework to award licenses under production-sharing contracts, has sparked a worldwide bidding frenzy despite the potential for commercial discoveries.
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