India’s national oil companies have been able to contain the annual decline rate in production to around 2 per cent since 2014-15, three times better than the global average decline rate of 6 per cent for mature fields, according to the International Energy Agency, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told Parliament in a written reply.
He said domestic production of crude oil from offshore and onshore fields stood at 27.96 million tonnes (MT) last financial year (2025-26), against 28.70 MT in 2024-25 and 29.36 MT in 2023-24. “The domestic oil production over the last three years has shown slight decline primarily owing to natural decline in mature and ageing oil and gas fields,” Puri said.
Domestic oil production by the NOCs, including Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India (OIL), dropped from 22.56 MT in 2023-25 to 21.91 MT in 2024-25 and further to 21.23 MT last fiscal. “During this period, the NOCs namely ONGC and Oil India have consistently sustained their production levels,” Puri said.
The minister added that the government supports the efforts by NOCs to implement field-level projects for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), Improved Oil Recovery (IOR), or reservoir re-evaluation through policy incentives, basin-level studies and technical oversight.
Puri said the Union Cabinet approved the Samudra Manthan – National Offshore Exploration Scheme on July 31, 2026, for large-scale acquisition, processing and interpretation of high-quality seismic data, accelerated exploratory drilling in deepwater and ultra-deepwater areas, along with development of common infrastructure and an oil & gas manufacturing zone.
