India’s state-owned Oil India Limited (OIL) formally announced a major natural gas discovery at the Sri Vijayapuram-3 exploratory. It was its second natural gas discovery offshore of Andaman Well on June 3. The first one, Vijayapuram-2, was discovered in September 2025. Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced the discovery on Friday. The well is situated around 15 kilometres off the eastern coast of the Andaman Islands at a depth of 355 metres.
“An ocean of energy opportunities reinforced in the Andaman Sea! Very happy to report the presence of natural gas in Sri Vijayapuram-3, an exploratory well drilled by Oil India Ltd. 15 km off the east coast of the Andaman Islands at a water depth of 355 meters,” said Hardeep Puri in a statement on the social media platform X. Puri said that the testing conducted at more than 1900 m+ resulted in continuous flaring.
Two out of three exploratory wells in this specific block have now officially proven the existence of a functioning hydrocarbon system. The Vijayapuram-2 well breakthrough, which confirmed a clean energy pool featuring 87% methane content. This confirms the existence of hydrocarbons in the Andaman Basin.
While the discovery is natural gas, there are expectations of oil based on geological modelling. India’s Hydrocarbon Resource Assessment Study (HRAS) estimates that hydrocarbon resources of 371 million Metric Tons of Oil Equivalent could be present in the Andaman Basin, which translates to roughly 2.7 billion barrels of combined oil and gas. However, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has suggested a directional estimate of 11.6 billion barrels.
“Under the Samudra Manthan Mission (National Deep Water Exploration Mission) announced by Hon’ble PM @narendramodi Ji on Independence Day 2025, a large number of deepwater & ultra-deepwater exploration wells are planned in our offshore basins to fully exploit our hydrocarbon reserves,” read the post.
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Geologically, the AN basin lies at the intersection of the Andaman and Nicobar Basins. The global interest in the basin rekindled following significant gas discoveries in the South Andaman offshore in Indonesia, highlighting geological continuity across this region.
