Shale gas sounds like a single-basin story. In India, it actually spans three separate sedimentary basins on opposite coasts.
🏛️ Must Know
Where India’s Shale Gas Resources Are Found
- Cambay Basin The Cambay Basin in Gujarat is one of India’s most prolific oil and gas basins. It has identified shale gas potential.
- Cauvery Basin The Cauvery Basin, covering parts of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, also holds identified shale gas resources.
- Krishna-Godavari Basin The Krishna-Godavari Basin in Andhra Pradesh is a major hydrocarbon site with shale gas potential too.
- All Three Are Genuine Shale gas resources are found in all three basins, not just one or two of them.
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📘 Good to Know
How Much Shale Gas India Actually Has
- ONGC’s Wider Estimate ONGC has estimated around 187.5 trillion cubic feet of shale gas across five basins. That count adds Ganga Valley and Assam to these three.
- A More Conservative USGS Figure The US Geological Survey put technically recoverable shale gas at about 6.1 trillion cubic feet. That estimate covers only the Cambay, KG, and Cauvery onland basins.
- Onshore, Not Offshore These shale gas estimates focus on the onland portions of each basin, distinct from India’s larger offshore conventional gas fields.
📝 Previous Year Questions
UPSC CSP 2016 — Where Shale Gas Resources Are Found in India
- UPSC 2016 Shale gas resources in India are found in the Cambay Basin, Cauvery Basin, and Krishna-Godavari Basin, all three. See UPSC CSP 2016 GS Paper I, Q74. View this question.
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Why India’s Shale Gas Remains Largely Untapped
- Regulatory Hurdles India’s shale gas policy has faced delays, since existing exploration licenses were not originally designed with shale gas in mind.
- Water-Intensive Extraction Hydraulic fracturing for shale gas needs large volumes of water, a real constraint in some of these basin regions.
- Connects to Other PYQ Facts These same basins also hold India’s conventional oil and gas reserves, linking this fact to broader hydrocarbon geography questions.
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