Natural gas discovery in Indian Ocean

July 26, 2016

New Delhi, Jul 26: India's Oil Ministry and the US Geological Survey made the discovery of large, highly enriched accumulations of natural gas hydrate - an icy form of the fuel - in the Bay of Bengal.

A large natural gas discovery has been made in the Indian Ocean following a joint expedition by India and the US, opening up a new resource to meet energy needs.

India's Oil Ministry and the US Geological Survey made the discovery of large, highly enriched accumulations of natural gas hydrate - an icy form of the fuel - in the Bay of Bengal.

"This is the first discovery of its kind in the Indian Ocean that has the potential to be producible," the US agency said in a statement.

Natural gas hydrates are a naturally occurring, ice-like combination of natural gas and water found in oceans and polar regions. The amount of gas within the world's gas hydrate accumulations is estimated to greatly exceed the volume of all known conventional gas resources.

India had in September 2014 agreed to collaborate to explore gas hydrates potential in the country and identify sites for pilot production testing.

Gas hydrates are considered as vast resources of natural gas and are known to occur in marine sediments on continental shelf margins. Gas hydrate resources in India are estimated at 1,894 trillion cubic meters and these deposits occur in Western, Eastern and Andaman offshore areas.

"Advances like the Bay of Bengal discovery will help unlock the global energy resource potential of gas hydrates as well as help define the technology needed to safely produce them," said Walter Guidroz, USGS Energy Resources Program coordinator.

This discovery is the result of the most comprehensive gas hydrate field venture in the world to date, made up of scientists from India, Japan and the United States.

The discovery follows an exploration of the region from March to July of last year.

"The scientists conducted ocean drilling, conventional sediment coring, pressure coring, downhole logging and analytical activities to assess the geologic occurrence, regional context and characteristics of gas hydrate deposits in the offshore of India," the statement said.

The US agency said although it is possible to produce natural gas from gas hydrates, there are significant technical challenges, depending on the location and type of formation.

Previous studies have shown that gas hydrate at high concentrations in sand reservoirs is the type of occurrence that can be most easily produced with existing technologies.

The gas hydrate discovered are located in coarse-grained sand-rich depositional systems in the Krishna-Godavari Basin and is made up of a sand-rich, gas-hydrate-bearing fan and channel-levee gas hydrate prospects.

The next steps for research will involve production testing in these sand reservoirs to determine if natural gas production is practical and economic.

"The results from this expedition mark a critical step forward to understanding the energy resource potential of gas hydrates," said USGS Senior Scientist Tim Collett, who participated in the expedition.
The discovery of several of the largest and most concentrated gas hydrate accumulations yet found in the world will yield the geologic and engineering data needed to better understand the geologic controls on the occurrence of gas hydrate in nature and to assess the technologies needed to safely produce gas hydrates, he said.

The international team of scientists was led by state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), in cooperation with the USGS, the Japanese Drilling Company, and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

In addition, USGS is working closely with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan on the analysis of pressure core samples collected from sand reservoirs with high gas hydrate concentrations.

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Average age of school children picking up drugs, smoking habit in 10 Indian cities around 13 years!

News Network

December 13,2025

New Delhi: School-going children are picking up drug and smoking habits and engaging in consumption of alcohol, with the average age of introduction to such harmful substances found to be around 13 years, suggesting a need for earlier interventions as early as primary school, a multi-city survey by AIIMS-Delhi said.

The findings also showed substance use increased in higher grades, with grade XI/XII students two times more likely to report use of substances when compared with grade VIII students. This emphasised the importance of continued prevention and intervention through middle and high school.

The study led by Dr Anju Dhawan of AIIMS's National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, published in the National Medical Journal of India this month, looks at adolescent substance use across diverse regions.

The survey included 5,920 students from classes 8, 9, 11 and 12 in urban government, private and rural schools across 10 cities -- Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Delhi, Dibrugarh, Hyderabad, Imphal, Jammu, Lucknow, Mumbai, and Ranchi. The data were collected between May 2018 and June 2019.

The average age of initiation for any substance was 12.9 (2.8) years. It was lowest for inhalants (11.3 years) followed by heroin (12.3 years) and opioid pharmaceuticals (without prescription; 12.5 years).

Overall, 15.1 per cent of participants reported lifetime use, 10.3 per cent reported past year use, and 7.2 per cent reported use in the past month of any substance, the study found.

The most common substances used in the past year, after tobacco (4 per cent) and alcohol (3.8 per cent), were opioids (2.8 per cent), followed by cannabis (2 per cent) and inhalants (1.9 per cent). Use of non-prescribed pharmaceutical opioids was most common among opioid users (90.2 per cent).

On being asked, 'Do you think this substance is easily available for a person of your age' separately for each substance category, nearly half the students (46.3 per cent) endorsed that tobacco products and more than one-third of the students (36.5 per cent) agreed that a person of their age can easily procure alcohol products.

Similarly, for Bhang (21.9 per cent), ganja/charas (16.1 per cent), inhalants (15.2 per cent), sedatives (13.7 per cent), opium and heroin (10 per cent each), the students endorsed that these can be easily procured.

About 95 per cent of the children, irrespective of their grade, agreed with the statement that 'drug use is harmful'.

The rates of substance use (any) among boys were significantly higher than those of girls for substance use (ever), use in the past year and use in the past 30 days. Compared to grade VIII students, grade IX students were more likely, and grade XI/XII students were twice as likely to have used any substance (ever).

The likelihood of past-year use of any substance was also higher for grade IX students and for grade XI/XII students as compared to grade VIII students.

About 40 per cent of students mentioned that they had a family member who used tobacco or alcohol each. The use of cannabis (any product) and opioid (any product) by a family member was reported by 8.2 per cent and 3.9 per cent of students, respectively, while the use of other substances, such as inhalants/sedatives by family was 2-3 per cent, the study found.

A relatively smaller percentage of students reported use of tobacco or alcohol among peers as compared to among family members, while a higher percentage reported inhalants, sedatives, cannabis or opioid use among peers.

Children using substances (past year) compared to non-users reported significantly higher any substance use by their family members and peers.

There were 25.7 per cent students who replied 'yes' to the question 'conflicts/fights often occur in your family'. Most students also replied affirmatively to 'family members are aware of how their time is being spent' and 'damily members are aware of with whom they spend their time'.

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