October 24, 2026: The government will share the cost of high-risk deepwater oil and gas exploration with energy companies under the Rs 840.84 billion Samudra Manthan scheme, offering to pay part of the cost of risky exploration wells, fund seismic mapping of offshore basins and help build shared production facilities.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas issued operational guidelines for the Samudra Manthan programme, which aims to improve the economics of exploring India's deepwater and ultra-deepwater basins, where high drilling costs and uncertain geological prospects have constrained investment.

The scheme aims to cut India's heavy reliance on imported hydrocarbons. The guidelines say it will run through FY2030-31, with FY2026-27 as a preparatory year and spending in FY2027-28 to FY2030-31 as Phase 1.

Petroleum Secretary Neeraj Mittal, in the preface to the guidelines, called the scheme "the most ambitious upstream oil and gas intervention undertaken in recent times" and said it could add "more than 600 million tonnes of oil equivalent" to India's reserves.

(Source: PTI)