ONGC will step up its exploration activities and achieve the government’s mandate of reducing import dependency through a three-year action plan from 2022-23 to 2024-25.

For 2023, the oil major’s Exploration Portfolio Management Board (EPMB) has recommended 70 sites for release of nearly 150 million tonne of oil equivalent (mmtoe) of yet-to-find (YTF) resources, with an outlay of Rs 2,700 crore.

Efforts will also be directed for reserve upgradation for some of the locations to bring the Bengal Basin to category-I status.

Category-I basins have reserves and are already in production stage, category-II basins have contingent resources pending commercial production, whereas category-III basins refer to prospective resources awaiting discovery.

The company has signed a series of MoUs to leverage international expertise, risk sharing, and technology. The agreement with ExxonMobil was inked on August 17, 2022, for collaboration in deepwater exploration in the KG-Cauvery and Kutch offshore basins.

The Chevron MoU offers an opportunity for potential collaboration in the Tripura fold-belt, Bengal offshore as well as KG-Cauvery. Likewise, the oil major has entered into a confidentiality agreement has been signed with TotalEnergies, France, for Andaman & Mahanadi offshore.

The MoU with Equinor, Norway will facilitate collaboration on upstream, mid-stream, marketing, renewable such as offshore wind, and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) activities. Similarly, an MoU with Shell will help advance CCUS studies, and enhanced oil recovery screening for key basins in India, which also includes depleted oil and gas fields and saline aquifers.