By R. Sasankan

India has shown an almost frenzied resolve to hunt for oil and gas in its sedimentary basins. Most other nations would have thrown up their hands in frustration and resignedly accepted the cruelty of fate and circumstance. But not India.

In one sense, it is understandable why it has displayed such tenacity in its determined quest for oil within its economic terrain. The country ranks among the world's biggest importers of crude oil and gas to feed its ballooning energy needs. It currently imports 87 per cent of its energy requirements with reports suggesting that this could cross 90 per cent by 2030.

Recently, petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri, a non-controversial member of the Modi cabinet and a former diplomat, once again stoked the efforts to find oil at home. According to him, the country's E&P sector offers investment opportunities worth $100 billion by 2030. Obviously, he is trying to renew efforts to entice foreign oil and gas companies to come to India and hunt for oil.

History, however, is stacked against this country. Despite an incredible number of sedimentary basins, the hunt for hydrocarbons in India has been patchy at best -- and undignified at worst. Barring a small partnership that British Petroleum (bp) has with Reliance Industries, no foreign oil and gas company operates in India's E&P sector. The main reason for this indifference is the perception that India's sedimentary basins are not attractive in terms of hydrocarbon reserves and, therefore, the hunt for oil and gas is a hard gamble with the cards stacked against anyone reckless enough to bet on a lucky strike.

Successive governments in India have been instituting reforms and announcing various schemes to promote oil exploration by wooing foreign companies and the private sector players in the country.

For a fairly long time, there has been no foreign bidder for the exploration acreage that has been placed on the block.

Among India's private players, Reliance Industries' entry created a moment of epiphany in 2009 with a supposedly colossal strike in the KG-D6 basin which soon unravelled when the dream almost ground to dust. It is now a small player with its small fields in the KG basin producing gas but no visible interest in continuing with E&P operations. Vedanta remains the largest small player from the private sector.

Puri has announced the formation of a new joint working group comprising representatives from private E&P operators, national oil companies, and the government aimed at improving ease of doing business in the segment. The group will submit their recommendations on policy revisions within the next eight weeks. I am not questioning the sincerity behind the move. But the sordid truth is that such study group initiatives have failed to move the needle in terms of unearthing new oil discoveries.

India has 26 sedimentary basins covering a total area of 3.4 million square kilometres. These basins are divided into three categories based on the maturity of hydrocarbon resources. Both ONGC and Oil India have been drilling wells on the basis of the recommendations made by their geologists and geophysicists. Luck has eluded these companies after the discovery in the seventies of the only major commercial oilfield at Bombay High.

The question: Is it a fault of the experts that they have not been able to identify prospective areas for drilling? Or, does this underscore more emphatically the point that these basins do not have adequate hydrocarbon reserves?

Among national oil companies in the world, ONGC has the dubious distinction of drilling the largest number of dry holes. Is this the right exploration strategy for this country?

I do not mean to suggest that Indian geologists and geophysicists are incompetent. I am not competent to sit in judgment on the issue. India's greatest success so far in the upstream has been the discovery of Bombay High oil field in the early 1970s. Credit for this discovery should go to Russian experts who identified the precise location and advised ONGC to drill there. The western offshore fields such as Panna, Mukta and Tapti were also discovered on the advice of these experts.

As a journalist covering the country's petroleum sector for a very long time, I have a suggestion: the working group should debate and discuss India's oil exploration strategy threadbare. Should PSU oil companies be forced to drill so many dry wells? After all, drilling well -- be it onshore, offshore or deep water -- involves massive costs.

Among major national oil companies, ONGC along with its subsidiary owns and operates one of the largest fleet of rigs: a total of 210 drilling and work-over rigs. Normally, only companies in oil-rich countries can afford this sort of luxury. I am not ruling out a kickback angle in the purchase of such a large number of rigs.

I am given to understand that the ONGC management is now in a fix. Being the owner of so many rigs, it cannot afford to let them remain idle and go to rust. So the company's experts are under pressure to find prospective drilling locations even if genuine prospectivity does not exist. The large posse of exploration experts cannot be allowed to stay idle either. This has turned into a self-fulfilling cycle of imaginary hopes and crushing despair.

I sincerely feel that India needs to break out of the cycle of forming working groups which is an escapist exercise to forestall the truth: India will never be that El Dorado for hydrocarbon search. Mr Puri should take the initiative to rope in experts from Russia who know more about the Indian sedimentary basins than some of our geologists and geophysicists. Indian experts can join them in undertaking an exercise to identify the best drilling sites in our basins. Drilling in future can be confined to these areas alone - and we can shake off our disreputable tag as the driller of dry holes.