State-run Oil And Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is aiming to collaborate with ExxonMobil to jointly bid for India’s hydrocarbon blocks in the upcoming bidding rounds under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP), the company’s Director (Exploration) O P Sinha said.
“We are in talks with ExxonMobil…and we are looking at possibilities of joint bidding in upcoming OALP rounds,” Sinha told reporters on the sidelines of India Energy Week.
ONGC has earlier partnered with Reliance Industries and bp plc to jointly bid for oil and gas blocks, and is now exploring similar collaboration with other global energy companies as it steps up its focus on deepwater exploration.
Going ahead, the upstream major will prioritise exploration activity along India’s east coast, including the Mahanadi basin, Krishna Godavari (KG) basin, Cauvery basin and the Andaman offshore.
“India’s east coast will mostly be the focus area for exploration going ahead. We have Mahanadi basin, KG Basin, Andaman also we have taken up for drilling more extensively,” Sinha said.
“In Cauvery also we have made discoveries. So the entire east coast is a prospective area from deepwater. We are going to the deepwater areas in the west coast also,” he added.
Resource Sharing Agreement
Earlier in the day, ONGC and Reliance Industries Ltd signed an agreement to enable sharing of resources for deepwater offshore exploration and production operations on India’s east coast, particularly across the KG basin and Andaman offshore.
According to a joint statement issued by the two companies, the agreement provides a framework for sharing key resources required for offshore operations, including onshore and offshore processing facilities, drilling rigs, marine vessels, power, pipelines, logging and well services.
The agreement has been enabled by amendments to the Oilfields (Regulation and Development) Act notified last year, which allow exploration and production operators to share infrastructure and facilities onshore and offshore.
Explaining the rationale of the collaboration, Sinha said the agreement framework would allow operators to share resources that may otherwise remain underutilised.
“The agreement framework would provide for sharing of resources that either of them may have in surplus,” he said.
Responding to queries on whether the scope of the agreement could be expanded beyond the KG basin and Andaman offshore, Sinha said the arrangement was not geographically limited.
“It would not be limited to KG basins and [can] happen elsewhere also,” he said.
“If I share the infrastructure, two, three or more companies can join hands to share the same resources and optimally and profitably use that infrastructure. In that direction, things would be moving,” he added.
High-Value Asset Collaboration
Under the agreement, ONGC and Reliance will pursue structured sharing of high-value offshore assets such as drilling rigs, marine vessels including multi-support vessels, tugs and platform supply vessels, along with logistics and specialised subsea equipment.
The companies said the shared framework is expected to deliver cost optimisation through shared use of rigs and vessels, improve access to limited deepwater services and enable faster mobilisation and execution of offshore projects.
The agreement also provides for sharing emergency response and training capabilities to strengthen operational resilience and safety readiness.
The collaboration aligns with the government’s emphasis on strengthening domestic exploration and production through regulatory reforms, infrastructure sharing and industry collaboration as part of broader efforts to enhance energy security.