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Agence France-Presse

Hit by the biggest energy supply shock in decades during the Middle East war, import-dependent India is expanding domestic crude exploration, its oil minister says.
India, the world’s third-largest importer of oil and the second-largest buyer of liquefied petroleum gas, faced major disruptions due to restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz during the conflict between the United States and Iran.
With a temporary US-Iran deal in place to pause hostilities, oil and gas shipments are flowing through the Gulf waterway again, and restrictions and price hikes in India are being rolled back.
But Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said the energy crunch provided fresh impetus for India’s expansion of domestic supplies.
“We are currently in the process … to bid out about 250,000 sq km (96,500 square miles) of unexplored area,” Puri said.

India is a modest producer in global terms.
Domestic crude production in 2025-2026 was 25.98 million metric tonnes, according to the oil ministry.
That meets just 10 per cent of India’s crude needs, equivalent to roughly 522,000 barrels per day (bpd), a figure well below its production peak of just more than 900,000 bpd in 2011.
India survived the energy crunch by expanding its crude suppliers from 27 to 41 countries, including Iran, Venezuela, greater purchases from Russia and several African nations.
New Delhi has previously been criticised by both the United States and Europe for its purchase of Russian oil, with critics arguing that it bankrolled Moscow’s war against Kyiv.

But Puri said India had a “pragmatic approach” that put its energy needs above “ideological considerations”.
The country’s domestic crude production is concentrated in the west – in its Mumbai offshore fields, Rajasthan and Gujarat – as well as the northeastern state of Assam.
But Puri has hailed what he calls an “ocean of energy opportunities” off India’s Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, an 800-km-long (500-mile) chain of environmentally sensitive islands in the seas bordering Thailand and Indonesia.
The vast Andaman Basin is geologically similar to hydrocarbon-bearing basins in Southeast Asia.
Puri posted a video on social media in June of a gas flare at an exploratory well drilled in the Andaman Sea by state-owned Oil India.

He said a “large number of deepwater and ultra-deepwater exploration wells are planned in our offshore basins to fully exploit our hydrocarbon reserves”.
New Delhi is working with “deepwater exploration experts” including Petrobras, TotalEnergies, BP, Shell and ExxonMobil, he said.
In the same Andaman Sea, India is readying a US$9 billion island megaport to build a megaport, airport and city, creating a strategic base on what is, for now, a far-flung island covered in pristine forests and home to one of Earth’s most isolated peoples.
The push predates the Middle East war.
Hindu-nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the “Samudra Manthan” mission during a speech marking Independence Day in August 2025.

The name refers to a central event in Hindu mythology meaning the “churning of the ocean”.
“We want to work in a mission mode towards finding oil reserves, gas reserves under the sea and hence India is going to start the National Deep Water Exploration Mission,” Modi said at the time.
But India’s bid to reduce dependence faces challenges.
Domestic demand in the world’s most populous nation of 1.4 billion people is growing rapidly, even as the government vows to achieve carbon neutrality by 2070.
India is also ramping up investments in renewables, nuclear energy and blending petrol with ethanol.

“India’s energy consumption today is growing at three times the pace compared to the rest of the world,” Puri said.
“It has jumped from five million barrels per day in 2021 to about 5.6 million barrels today, and would soon touch six million barrels per day, on the back of the robust economic and per capita income growth.”
Puri said he was “exceptionally bullish” for the future.
“I am happy with the knowledge that our E+P (exploration & production) is going up and, believe me, it’s going to rise very fast,” Puri said.
He noted it was “a very capital intensive and time-consuming” process, but said he had high hopes.
“We are putting fiscal resources into oil and gas exploration in a very big way, with a US$10 billion programme,” he added.
“With it, we are going into one million kilometres of unexplored area.”


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India

A motorcyclist and his family drive along in Port Blair, in India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands archipelago. File photo: AP 

Great Nicobar island in the Andaman Sea in March. The island’s inhabitants are famously resistant to engaging with outsiders, even killing a US missionary who made an illegal visit in 2018. Photo: AFP

Boat Island in the Andaman Islands, a remote Indian archipelago. File photo: AFP

Hardeep Singh Puri, minister of oil, said India is in the process of ‘bidding out about 250,000 sq km of unexplored area’. File photo: AFP

A train carrying oil passes near the Guwahati Refinery. Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, India - the world’s most populous nation - has bought vast quantities of cut-price Russian crude. Photo: AFP

An employee inspects photovoltaic cells used in solar panels at a factory in India’s port city of Mundra in November 2025; the nation is looking at green energy as well as oil. Photo: AFP

Iran, US claims conflict over Hormuz as 3 Indian crude tankers emerge

Indian-flagged oil tanker Kashimasan, docked near an offloading terminal at Butcher Island, near Mumbai, on April 1. Photo: AFP

The remains of deceased Aditya Sharma arriving at his home in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, India on Thursday. Sharma was among three crew members killed in a US attack on the Indian-crewed tanker MT Settebello. Photo: Reuters

India turns to ‘trusted friend’ Russia for oil, LNG supply as Iran war energises ties

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin speaks with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Hyderabad House in New Delhi in December. Photo: AFP

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation Alexei Likhachev (left) and Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov (second from left) visit an exhibition in Moscow in 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE/Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool

Reservoirs of Russian state-controlled oil giant OAO Rosneft at an oil field near Nefteyugansk, in western Siberia. Photo: AP

India’s military turns to green energy options as Iran war prompts new strategy

Indian soldiers perform drills in Kargil, Ladakh, India, in July last year. The Indian army is increasing its use of green energy sources due to rising oil prices caused by the impact of the Iran war. Photo: NurPhoto via Getty Images

Smoke rises in the Fujairah oil industry zone, UAE, in March amid the US-Israel conflict with Iran. Photo: Reuters

Soldiers in Russian-made T-90 tanks take part in a celebration to mark India’s Army Day in New Delhi in 2021. India’s army’s increasing use of green energy would not affect its fighting capability, analysts say. Photo: AFP

India’s huge new megaport off Southeast Asia gets green go-ahead

Indira Point Lighthouse on Great Nicobar island pictured in 2005 after the previous year’s devastating Indian Ocean tsunami. Photo: AFP

An aerial view of Katchal Island, one of the Nicobar Islands located around 120km north of Great Nicobar. Photo: AFP

India’s capital celebrates Diwali cloaked in acrid smog – despite ‘green firecrackers’

People walk through smog in New Delhi, India, on Monday morning. Photo: Reuters

A street vendor sells fireworks last week near Jama Masjid mosque in the old quarter of Delhi. Photo: EPA

A boy looks for reusable waste as smoke billows from burning garbage at the Ghazipur landfill in Delhi last winter. Photo: AFP

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The import-heavy nation is looking at huge ‘unexplored’ areas off the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago bordering Thailand and Indonesia


The import-heavy nation is looking at huge ‘unexplored’ areas off the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago bordering Thailand and Indonesia.


India eyes further oil exploration after Iran war shortages

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The import-heavy nation is looking at huge ‘unexplored’ areas off the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago bordering Thailand and Indonesia

The import-heavy nation is looking at huge ‘unexplored’ areas off the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago bordering Thailand and Indonesia