The Mission of OIL’s R&D Department is to provide knowledge-based, competent and techno-economically feasible solution in the areas of Exploration, Drilling, Production, Transportation of Crude oil and Natural Gas, Pollution Monitoring & Control and Alternate source of Energy through laboratory services of highest quality and by adopting state-of-art technology and caring for the environment.

OIL accords utmost importance to up-gradation of technologies and expertise in various area of its activities through its own Research & Development Centre at Duliajan, Assam.

The R&D Department is recognized by the Department of Scientific & Industrial Research under the Ministry of Science & Technology, Govt. of India. The Department is equipped highly sophisticated and advanced laboratory facilities. The R&D Department is carrying out studies in the highly specialized areas of Petroleum Geochemistry, Oilfield Chemicals, Flow Assurance, Well Stimulation, Enhanced / Improved Oil Recovery, Pollution Control, and Petroleum Biotechnology. The R&D Department is also working on newer sources of energy like Green Hydrogen and Geothermal Energy from Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells.

The Company has entered into collaborative projects with reputed academic and research institutes of higher learning – IIT (Bombay), IIT (Guwahati), Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology (RGIPT), UP, University of Petroleum & Energy Studies (UPES) and CSIR – Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP) Dehradun.

The Company has filed Seven (7) Patent applications in Indian Patent Office. The Company has so far been granted 05 patents in 14 countries: Three (3) in India, Four (4) in the USA, two (2) each in Russia, EU, and China, One (1) in Japan.

The Company is determined to further strengthen its R&D efforts towards providing appropriate techno-economical solution of the problems faced in the areas of exploration, drilling, production and transportation of crude oil and natural gas.

The Company has also established Centre of Excellence for Energy Studies (CoEES), a centre for integrated study of various domains in the upstream petroleum sector, specially covering both Exploration and Reservoir activities, in Guwahati.

The vision of CoEES is to be a centre of innovation and development for enabling OIL to match with the global oil majors in terms of technical capability and business performance. To meet the above vision, the Company has established state-of-the-art facilities in terms of software, hardware, laboratory facilities and expertise for building an environment that fosters innovation and creativity. It is equipped with world class technologies encompassing the conventional oil and gas sector, unconventional hydrocarbon, and other energy spectrum.

CoEES activities are aligned to match OIL's vision and strategy. Broadly the areas taken up by the centre are Basin Modelling, EOR / IOR simulation studies and Unconventional Hydrocarbon / Alternate Energy Resources. The Centre collaborates with academia and national and international research institutes. Several projects in the above areas have been completed in the centre since its inception, contributing to OIL’s crude oil production. The centre is also equipped with Sedimentology, Geochemical and EOR Laboratories.

CoEES is also recognised as one of the designated institutes for vetting Enhanced Recovery (ER) projects by MoP&NG, Govt. of India and recognised as an R&D institute by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Govt. of India.