India's Hydrocarbon Outlook – 2022-2023

97 DGH: 3 DECADES OF UNLOCKING INDIA'S HYDROCARBON POTENTIAL industry. However, private sector E&P companies also contributed to data generation through the global bidding route under Pre-NELP (1980-95) and pre-NELP field rounds (1992-93) offers and discovered field rounds since the 1980s. The real boost in exploration efforts and appraisal of Indian basins came during the NELP regime (1999-2015), particularly in offshore areas, resulting in a quantum jump in data volume from the preceding era. Both NOC and private operators contributed to this using the latest technology of the time. Recently, new data is being acquired by Operators of various blocks awarded in Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) and Discovered Small Field (DSF) rounds under Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) (2016-). A significant amount of seismic data has also been acquired under the government-funded National Seismic Programme (NSP) and Multi-client surveys conducted under Non-Exclusive Multi-Client (NEMC) Policy. Service providers are also reprocessing vintage 2D/3D data under the "value-addition" clause of NDR data policy. 3.1 E&P data – A National Resource E&P data is considered a valuable national resource, and its ownership lies with the government. The Petroleum and Natural Gas (Amendment) rules of 2006 mandate that all E&P operators in India to provide the Central Government or its designated agency with any data obtained as a result of petroleum operations in the country, free of cost. The E&P data policy issued by MoPNG in 2017 outlines the framework for data assimilation, disclosure, sharing, accessibility, and dissemination through the National Data Repository (NDR). The policy designates DGH as the nodal agency for the purpose. Technological advancements in data processing, interpretation, and visualization provide opportunities to gain new insights into even age-old E&P data. The exponential growth in data volume and diversity of data types enables the processing of diverse data sets to identify relational patterns, which can improve understanding of the subsurface, design exploration campaigns, and optimize oil and gas production. Effective data management is crucial to develope a robust national E&P database and accelerating exploration and production activities in the country. Therefore, safeguarding E&P data is a matter of national significance. 3.2 National Data Repository: The National Data Repository (NDR) was established by the Government of India in 2014 under the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) to assimilate, preserve, and disseminate a vast amount of data acquired by public and private companies, operators, agencies, and contractors during E&P activities over several decades. The data was previously scattered across different work centres of ONGC, OIL, and DGH, or held by the respective operating companies. The main objective of the NDR is to organize and regulate the data for future exploration The NDR is a key enabler of Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) and Discovered Small Fields (DSF) rounds under the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) regime. It provides E&P operators with the freedom to carve out blocks of their interest and size, facilitated by the NDR. and development activities, as well as for research and development by educational institutions and government bodies. The NDR serves as a national-level establishment capable of managing a massive volume of data and providing access to it for public use. To implement the project, the government awarded a turnkey contract for the "Build, Populate and Operate" model for the NDR to M/s Halliburton Offshore Services in March 2014. After the initial set up and data loading, the NDR was officially launched for public use