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India New Oil & Gas Alternatives: Amid the ongoing global oil crisis, India eyes fresh discoveries of oil and gas reserves in the Andaman and Mahanadi basins, top-level ONGC officials told exclusively to Republic Media Network.

While the Western onshore and offshore basin has been surveyed and utilised nearly to its limit, the centre's attention has pivoted towards its eastern region, including Bay of Bengal, and Mahanadi basin, which spans across Orissa, and Chattisgarh.  

India's major upstream oil and gas entities such as Oil and Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC), and Oil India Ltd (OIL) have doubled down their efforts into identifying fresh alternatives in the Andaman basin.

This comes ahead of the South Asian country's mega oil and gas survey, which industry sources told Republic Media Network involves a collaborative effort between several private enterprises and the central government.

At the time of writing this report, Brent crude price stood at 109.9 per barrel, while the rate of WTI crude oil was around $102 per barrel.

On other hand, centre' expensive deepwater exploration and drilling gamble in the Andaman basin continues ahead of the country's large-scale oil and gas survey.

The multi-basin geological survey involving the use of rigs, 3D cubicles will conducted across the Mahanadi , Bengal-Purnea, Krishna-Godavari, Cauvery and Andaman offshore regions. Bids were floated in this regard on May 14.

This is being conducted to reduce India's oil and gas import dependence on other countries, and find an alternative to its western region discoveries as deep water exploration in the only resort left in that region.

The Bengal-Purnea and Mahanadi survey will itself cover 45,000 line kilometres (LKM), while the Krishna-Godavari survey will cover nearly 43,000 LKM.

Meanwhile, the Cauvery Basin will add another 30,000 LKM, and the Andaman Basin survey will span another 43,000 line kilometres.