India eyes major oil discovery in Andaman Sea, says Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri
New Delhi: Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri has indicated that India could soon witness a significant oil discovery in the Andaman Sea. In an interview published by The New Indian, Puri informed about the government’s ongoing efforts to boost domestic oil and gas exploration which is backed by regulatory reforms and growing investment across India’s energy sector.
He traced this momentum to policy changes that began in 2016 and under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP), India has unlocked new sedimentary basins for exploration. Puri noted that out of India’s 3.5 million square kilometres of sedimentary basins, nearly 1 million square kilometres have been opened for bidding. In OALP Round 9, close to 38% of the bids targeted these newly opened areas and the minister expects that share to grow to 80% in the next round. The latest auction, covering 250,000 square kilometres, is India’s largest to date.
Puri cited Guyana’s experience where ExxonMobil struck oil after drilling over 40 wells, each costing around $100 million. He pointed to ONGC’s drilling activity in 2023-24 as a sign of India’s growing seriousness. “ONGC this year has dug the maximum number of wells. Highest in 37 years,” he said. In financial year 2024, ONGC drilled 541 wells, including 103 exploratory and 438 development wells and ₹37,000 crore was the capital expenditure.
The minister said “Now things are changing, and I’m very confident that we’ll find many more oil fields. Very very quickly,” he said.
Turning to recent legislative reforms, Puri discussed the Oil Fields Regulation and Development Amendment Bill introduced this year. The bill replaces outdated regulations dating back to 1948, which previously covered multiple resource sectors, including coal, minerals and petroleum, often causing regulatory ambiguity. He said “It(the bill) rectifies that. It helps to solve the problems and also achieves the goals for those private companies in terms of no objection certificates, which they could not earlier. The bill has been brought after large-scale interaction with industry players… The rules and regulations that we are implementing under that are also subject to public consultation.”
Puri expressed confidence that these policy changes, combined with potential discoveries, could fuel rapid economic growth. “Apart from these little discoveries which are coming, which could turn out to be very big also, that we find Guyana and then you will go from a $3.7 trillion economy to a $20 trillion economy straight away.”
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Man arrested for for raping mute woman in Jamshedpur
Jamshedpur (PTI): One person was arrested on the charge of raping a 30-year-old woman with speech impairment in Jamshedpur, a police officer said on Tuesday.
The incident occurred in the Azadnagar police station area of the city, and a case in this regard was registered based on the statement of the victim's brother on Monday.
The victim had gone to fetch water from the premises of a company on Monday evening. When she did not return even after a considerable time, family members went out in search of her and caught the accused red-handed, police said.
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The accused was a caretaker of the company.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (Patamda) Bachandeo Kujjur said due to scarcity of water in the area, the victim used to fetch water from the premises of the company.
