India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) on Wednesday signed a deal with global oil major ExxonMobil Corp for deepwater exploration in India's eastern and western coasts. 

The signing of the Heads of Agreement (HoA) ends ONGC long drawn search of finding a global oil major to partner with in an attempt to quickly monetise its reserves.

India's 53 per cent basin area is offshore. However, it requires sophisticated machinery and manpower to extract the oil from such difficult terrains. ONGC is a giant in the industry but it still lags behind in technological prowess which Exxon is expected to bring onto the table, under the new partnership. 

According to the stock exchange filing, ONGC and ExxonMobil will put their attention on the deepwater reserves in India's East and West coasts 

"The collaboration areas focus on the Krishna Godavari and Cauvery Basins in the eastern offshore and the Kutch-Mumbai region in the western offshore. There has been a scientific exchange of exploration data in the last few years, which has led to this partnership," read the statement. 

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil India in its statement iterated, “It’s an exciting opportunity to collaborate with ONGC. Great things happen when the right people collaborate. He further added that 25 per cent of the ExxonMobil brain power is currently engaged in evaluating Indian deepwater. ExxonMobil is geared up to take this collaboration to the next level.”

It is pertinent to note that India is the world's third-largest importer and consumer of oil. More than 85 per cent of the country's oil demands are met by overseas countries, which puts a tremendous strain on the exchequer.

However, ever since the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, India has been purchasing cheaper oil from Russia, much to the chagrin of the western world.

(With inputs from agencies)