Cairn Installs India’s First Sub-Sea Template on West Coast

Cairn Oil & Gas, a division of the Vedanta Group, has set up the nation's first Sub-Sea Template (SST) on the West Coast, heralding a significant engineering landmark for India's upstream oil and gas industry.

The development is an important advance towards extracting value from marginal offshore discoveries and enhances India's offshore production capability.

The SST installation was carried out at the offshore Ambe block in the Gulf of Cambay as part of a Conductor Supported Platform (CSP) development. Notably, the operation was executed using a jack-up rig, making it the first such deployment for sub-sea template installation in Indian offshore waters.

Cairn holds the Ambe block (CB/OSDSF/AMBE/2021), one of India’s earliest Discovered Small Field (DSF) assets, and is now fast-tracking its development and monetisation.

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Commenting on the milestone, Anil Agarwal, Chairman, Vedanta Group, said, “The successful installation of India’s first sub-sea template on the West Coast demonstrates our strong in-house engineering capabilities and commitment to unlocking India’s hydrocarbon potential. This achievement reflects our focus on cost-efficient, scalable offshore development to support the country’s energy security.”

According to the company, the milestone aligns with the upstream industry philosophy of “Design One, Build Many,” enabling faster, repeatable, and cost-effective offshore developments.

SLB was brought on board as the Integrated Drilling Services partner, and Cairn previously acquired a drilling rig from Greatship India Limited and partnered with 2H Offshore for EPCM services. Now that the SST is in place, Cairn intends to start drilling soon with the goal of increasing domestic oil and gas output from the basin.