Deep Water Exploration

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Talks between ONGC Limited and Exxon Mobil have advanced further for exploration and development of deep water basins of Cauvery river.

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ONGC has entered into talks Exxon because they have expertise in deep water exploration. ONGC is going to take benefit of its technical expertise.

ONGC and American oil and Gas giant Exxon Mobil signed the MoU in October 2019. It was taken up for joint technical studies and team up in frontier areas like deep water and other Petroleum Exploration Licence blocks of ONGC in east and west coast and open acreages for joint bidding.

The MoU was to be taken forward in three rounds and this was the second phase.

These explorers have advance technology to study data and that would help them to decide about their investment risks.

This step is seen as a building block in strengthening the relationship between India and the US.

Cauvery Basin

The Cauvery Basin extending extends along the East Coast of India, bounded by –

08º – 12º 5’ North Latitude , 78º – 800 East Longitude has been under hydrocarbon exploration since late nineteen fifties. Application of CDP seismic in 1984 considerably increased the pace of exploration resulting in the discovery of several small oil and gas fields. The first deep well for exploration was drilled in 1964.

The Cauvery Basin covers an area of 1.5 lakh sq.km comprising onland (25,000 sq.km) and shallow offshore areas (30,000 sq km). In addition, there is about 95,000 sq km of deep-water offshore areas in the Cauvery Basin. Most of the offshore and onland basin area is covered by gravity, magnetic and CDP Seismic surveys.