Mumbai High oil field

Mumbai High is an offshore oil field in the Arabian Sea, about 160 km off the west coast of Mumbai, India. It lies in roughly 75 m of water and is run by India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). Together with the nearby Bassein field it has been India's top oil and gas producer.

Its name comes from its shape under the seabed: the oil sits in a long upward fold of rock called an anticline, about 65 km long and 23 km wide. The first offshore well was drilled in 1974, and in its peak year, 1998, the field produced about 20 million tonnes of oil. It is sometimes still called Bombay High, after Mumbai's former name.

Finding the oil

An Indo-Soviet exploration team on the survey ship Academic Arkhangelsky mapped the Gulf of Khambhat in 1964 to 1967, and a more detailed survey followed in 1972. The name is said to come from a team that studied the 1965 survey results in a building in Mumbai. The first offshore well was sunk in 1974. The findings turned the Arabian Sea off Mumbai into India's most important oil area.

Production over time

In 2004 the field supplied about 14 percent of India's oil needs and 38 percent of all oil produced in India. The crude oil is of very good quality, with more than 60 percent paraffin, compared with only about 25 percent in light Arabian crude. Output has fallen over the years, to about 205,000 barrels a day in 2018 and 134,000 in 2024, but new pipelines and equipment keep it running.

On the globe

Look for the Arabian Sea off Mumbai on India's west coast.