India unveils ₹84,000cr Samudra Manthan to boost offshore hydrocarbons exploration
India just announced a huge ₹84,000 crore plan called Samudra Manthan to ramp up offshore oil and gas exploration over the next five years.
The main aim? To cut down on how much crude oil and natural gas we import.
Right now, we rely on imports for 90% of our crude and half our gas.
With production numbers dipping in the last fiscal year (FY26, April 2025-March 2026), the government wants to turn things around.
Samudra Manthan funds seismic, 60 wells
Samudra Manthan is all about exploring deepwater areas like Krishna-Godavari and Andaman.
There's big money for new tech (₹28,534 crore for seismic data), drilling 60 wells (with the government pitching in up to half the cost), and building shared offshore infrastructure hubs.
The hope is that this will boost annual oil and gas output from 62 to 80 million metric tons of oil equivalent, raise the country's hydrocarbon resource base from 1.6 billion tons of oil equivalent to 2.2 billion TOE, and help India meet its growing energy needs without depending so much on other countries.