PANJIM: In a major finding in the field of energy resources, National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) has discovered active cold seeps, associated with shallow methane hydrates in Krishna Godavari (K-G) basin, which can take care of the country’s energy resource for the next 100 years, even if ten percent of it is tapped.
NIO claims that the new finding in K-G basin places India in the global cold seep map and opens up new avenues in the field of hydrate research and development, unique biodiversity/ecology and bioactive molecules that may have application in therapeutics and bio technology.
The discovery was made by scientists on board NIO’s exploration vessel Sindhu Sadhana in India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) this week.
In a statement, NIO Director Sunil Kumar Singh said there are approximately 1,900 trillion cubic metres of methane gas hydrates in the Indian EEZ. “If we can tap even ten per cent of it, we can take care of energy resource for next hundred years for our country,” he said.
NIO while announcing the breakthrough said that methane hydrates are considered as alternative hydrocarbon energy reserve. In the Indian margins, methane hydrates were reported earlier from Krishna-Godavari, Mahanadi and Andaman basins formed under different depositional environments.
The seep sites are distributed over a water depth of 900 to 1900 m. In view of the uniqueness and endemic nature of the cold seep community, they have received wide-spread global attention, NIO said.
