Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) plans to invest around ₹1 lakh crore over the next five years to expand exploration in deepwater and ultra-deepwater areas, as the state-owned energy major steps up efforts to identify new domestic hydrocarbon resources. The investment is expected to support an extensive drilling programme across India’s offshore basins.
According to ONGC Chairman and CEO Arun Kumar Singh, the company plans to drill around 87 deepwater and ultra-deepwater wells by 2030-31. The exploration programme is aimed at tapping India’s relatively underexplored offshore hydrocarbon potential and creating new sources of oil and natural gas to support the country’s energy requirements.
The planned investment comes alongside ONGC’s intensified exploration activity in offshore areas. During FY26, the company reported three new hydrocarbon discoveries in its operated offshore acreage. These discoveries comprise two new prospects – Vajramani and MBS191HCA-1, and one new pool discovery, MBS202HAA-1. The discoveries were made in ONGC-operated acreage in the Mumbai Offshore region.
ONGC said testing completed during FY26 established 55 wells as hydrocarbon-bearing, including wells drilled in earlier years. During the year, the company acquired 957.25 lakh line kilometres of 2D seismic data and 4,631.04 sq km of 3D seismic data, strengthening its geological understanding of offshore exploration areas.
The company has cumulatively drilled 79 exploratory wells and made 13 discoveries in its Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) blocks. Reserve accretion from ONGC-operated areas in India stood at 44.01 million tonnes of oil equivalent (MMTOE) in 2P terms during FY26, resulting in a Reserve Replacement Ratio of 1.17.
Deepwater exploration has been identified by ONGC as a key area for future resource discovery. Singh said the company had mobilised specialist expertise and was planning double-crew deepwater drilling activity over the next four years, while also floating a tender for exploratory wells in the ultra-deepwater domain. ONGC expects to drill around seven deepwater wells in FY27 and 10 in the following year.
The company’s exploration plans are also aligned with the government’s ₹84,084-crore Samudra Manthan, National Offshore Exploration Scheme, approved in August 2026. The scheme is designed to accelerate offshore exploration by providing financial support of up to 50 per cent of eligible deepwater exploration drilling costs, subject to a ceiling of ₹675 crore per well.
Under Samudra Manthan, the government has allocated ₹28,534 crore for offshore seismic data acquisition, ₹43,200 crore for drilling 60 deepwater exploration wells, ₹10,000 crore for common offshore infrastructure hubs and ₹2,000 crore for oil and gas manufacturing and services zones. The broader programme is intended to reduce exploration risks and unlock hydrocarbon resources in areas including the Krishna-Godavari, Cauvery, Mahanadi and Andaman basins.
The government estimates that the scheme could help raise India’s domestic oil and gas production from around 62 MMTOE to 80 MMTOE annually, subject to exploration success. It also aims to expand the country’s hydrocarbon resource base from approximately 1.6 billion tonnes of oil equivalent to 2.2 billion tonnes of oil equivalent.
For ONGC, the deepwater push is part of a broader effort to offset the natural decline of mature oil and gas fields by bringing new reserves into production. The company has also been progressing with the redevelopment of Mumbai High, with the Phase-I scheme expected to deliver cumulative incremental production of 2.699 million tonnes of oil and 2.806 billion cubic metres of natural gas by March 2040.
The latest exploration programme therefore marks a significant expansion of ONGC’s offshore strategy, combining large-scale investment, advanced seismic surveys and deepwater drilling with government-backed risk sharing. With three new discoveries already reported during FY26, the company is looking to build on these results and accelerate exploration across India’s offshore basins.
