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Petroleum geophysics in India

Challenges and opportunities

chief geophysicist, ONGC, India

A. G. Pramanik

past president, Society of Petroleum Geophysicists (SPG), India

Corresponding author: zssagwal@ongc.net

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

The quest for petroleum in the Indian subcontinent began in 1825, when army officers reported seepages of oil on the banks of the Dehing River in the dense jungles of upper Assam. The first commercial find took place in Digboi in 1889 and the first geophysical surveys (torsion balance) were conducted by Eötvös Geophysical Institute in 1925. Thereafter, in the preindependence era, there were negligible exploration efforts by private oil companies as the sedimentary basins in India, other than Assam, were not considered prospective.

After independence, development of the petroleum industry was considered imperative and two state-owned oil companies—ONGC and OIL—were formed in 1956 and 1959, respectively. This triggered a rapid growth in exploration activities in all the major sedimentary basins of India with intensive use of geophysical tools.

Seismic data processing in India started in 1970 with a HoneyWell 400 computer system at ONGC Dehradun. The Indian geophysical industry is now equipped . . . [Full Text of this Article]