Bengal Basin-India’s Eighth Functional Basin

The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation recently began oil production from Ashokenagar-1 well located in the Bengal Basin. With this Bengal Basin becomes the eighth oil producing basin in India. The other oil producing basins of India are located in Mumbai Offshore, Krishna-Godavari river basin, Cauvery, Assam Shelf, Rajasthan, Assam-Arakan, Cambay and Fold Belt.

Key Highlights

The Ashokenagar-1 well was established under the Early Monetization Plan of Government of India. This makes ONGC discover seven out of eight oil producing basins in India. The company covers 83% of established oil and gas reserves in the country.

According to the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, there are twenty-six sedimentary basins in India. They cover 3.4 million square kilo metres. Of these sixteen are on land basins, three are off-shore basins and seven are located on both on land and off-shore.

India’s Target on Oil Production

India aims to bring down the oil imports. In order to achieve this, India has planned to reduce its oil dependence on imports to 67% by 2022 as compared to 77% in 2013-14.

Oil and Gas industry in India

India generates 35.2 million tonnes of petroleum products from its indigenous crude oil production. India consumes 204.9 million tonnes of petroleum products. India is the second largest importer of crude oil after China.

India uses oil and natural gas for generating electricity as well. Oil and Natural Gas are the second and third largest sources of electricity generation after coal. Crude oil accounts to 10.34% of electricity produced in India. On the other hand, natural gas accounts to 8.7% of total electricity produced in India.

India imports oil mainly from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nigeria, UAE, Venezuela, Kuwait, Mexico, Angola, United States, Malaysia, Oman, Brazil, Qatar and Russia.

About Bengal Basin

The oil and gas reserve in Bengal basin were first discovered in 2018. It falls under Mahanadi-Bengal-Andaman basin. ONGC has so far spent Rs 3,381 crores in the discovery of oil and natural gas in the basin.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2020