Photo: Indian Navy, Wikimedia Commons, GODL-India
India’s Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the ‘Samudra Manthan’ National Offshore Exploration Scheme on Thursday, July 31, 2026, with a total financial outlay of Rs 84,084 crore running through FY2030-31.
The scheme, to be implemented by the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas as a Central Sector Scheme, targets reserve accretion of over 600 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent, along with higher offshore exploration activity and increased domestic production.
Deep-sea and ultra-deep-sea drilling will receive more than Rs 43,200 crore over five years through 2031, with per-well support of up to Rs 650 crore in deepwater and ultra-deepwater zones, where drilling a single well can cost between Rs 950 crore and Rs 2,400 crore.
The remaining outlay includes Rs 10,000 crore for common infrastructure development, Rs 28,534 crore for offshore data acquisition, and Rs 2,000 crore for oil and gas manufacturing and services zones.
Calling it a ‘major game-changer,’ Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the scheme would help India substantially boost domestic production and reduce the foreign currency spent on crude oil imports.
The government expects the scheme to generate large-scale employment as exploration work expands across India’s offshore basins in the years ahead.
Deep-sea and ultra-deep-sea drilling is considered technically demanding and capital-intensive, which is why the scheme sets aside dedicated funding specifically for wells in those zones.
The scheme’s data acquisition component is intended to help identify new sedimentary basins and improve the accuracy of reserve estimates before companies commit to expensive drilling programmes.
India currently imports a large share of its crude oil requirement, a dependence successive governments have sought to reduce through incentives for domestic exploration and production.
The petroleum ministry has previously run rounds of offshore acreage auctions under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy, aimed at drawing both public and private sector investment into exploration blocks.
Photo: Indian Navy, Wikimedia Commons, GODL-India
