New Delhi: State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) has reached out to as many as 10 global energy players to participate in its tender for the role of technical services provider (TSP) to enhance production in its western offshore fields, Pankaj Kumar, director (production) at ONGC, said to mediapersons on the sidelines of India Energy Week.
The companies approached include UK-headquartered Shell, bp plc, French major TotalEnergies, and US oil and gas giants ExxonMobil and Chevron.
The plan to bring in TSP for other fields comes at a time when the oil and gas production has largely been muted.
In FY25, ONGC reported a 0.9% increase in standalone crude oil production to 18.558 million tonnes (mt) and a slight decline in natural gas production to 19.654 billion cubic metres (BCM).
“We are now in the market for another TSP covering the Western Offshore, excluding Mumbai high field. The tender has been floated, and we have personally communicated with the CEOs of 10 major E&P (exploration and production) operators, including Shell, bp, Chevron, Exxon, TotalEnergies among others,” Kumar said.
Bassein, Heera & Neelam fields and Panna-Mukta fields are key fields on the western offshore.
Queries emailed to Shell, bp, Chevron, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies on Tuesday late evening remained unanswered till press time.
The national oil and gas major has already appointed bp plc as the TSP for its Mumbai High field. Last year, ONGC and bp signed a contract under which bp would serve as the TSP for the Mumbai High field, India’s largest offshore oil field.
According to the company, bp aims to increase oil production by 44% and gas production by 89%, leading to $15 billion of incremental revenue in 10 years.
Under the revival plan, ONGC and bp have split Mumbai High into six hubs for faster, optimized redevelopment. In the first phase, ONGC has already committed $400 million in capital expenditure. Under phase 2 of the Mumbai High field redevelopment, both companies have targeted 100 new wells in FY28 and FY29.
The company’s board has approved a development scheme to produce 12 mt of oil and 13.5 BCM of gas in the next few years.
The UK-headquartered energy giant would work in close collaboration with ONGC to stabilize the field’s current production decline and restore it to a robust growth trajectory. In August 2025, Arun Kumar Singh, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of ONGC said that study is currently underway for the planned enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
In November, ONGC reported that with persistent efforts towards increasing domestic production, ONGC has been able to achieve “increasing trend” in crude oil production.
The standalone crude oil production during Q2 FY26 and H1 FY26 was 4.630 mt and 9.314 mt respectively, registering a growth of 1.2% over corresponding periods of FY25.
“On the gas production front also, ONGC has been able to arrest the degrowth. The decline, which was 0.35% in Q1FY26 over Q1FY25 has been brought down to 0.04% in Q2FY26 over Q2FY25,” it had said in a statement.
Through measures including enhanced oil recovery, the state-run company aims to save a total of ₹9,300 crore by FY27 through a number of cost-optimization measures planned by the company. The cost reduction would account for about 15% of the planned operational and capital expenditure cost of ₹62,000 crore during the period, the director (production) had said in October.
The company has set up a dedicated cost council in the wake of subdued oil prices and a projection of crude trading tepid around $60 per barrel in the next two fiscals. Offshore resource optimization, increasing drilling, efficiency, logistics route optimization, inventory reduction and increasing fuel efficiency are the government-owned company’s key cost reduction initiatives.