GoI measures to boost oil & natural gas production
India’s crude oil import dependence based on the domestic consumption of petroleum products was 78.4% during 2014-15. This was informed by the Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, as he also mentioned a need to cut crude oil imports. The Minister further informed that the dependence on crude oil imports is the result of an inter-play of several factors like success in new production of crude oil, successful acquisition of assets or equity oil abroad, success in conservation efforts, among others. He further informed that the production of the state-run oil companies remained stagnant over the last few years. While the production of crude oil was 37.788 Million Metric Tonnes (MMT) during 2013-14, it stood at 37.460MMT during 2014-15, according to the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas release. In a move to accelerate the pace of exploration and production of oil and gas in the country, the government has taken various policy measures, says the Minister. Under the measures to boost the domestic production in the country, the government, under a specific project, intends to reassess the overall resources of hydrocarbon in all sedimentary basins of India. Through this move, the focus is also laid upon the appraising of the un-appraised areas of all sedimentary basins in the country. For this purpose, an initiative to implement a policy on non-exclusive multi-client speculative survey for the assessment of unexplored and un-appraised sedimentary basins, has also been considered by the government, informed the Minister. Besides these, under the Increased Oil Recovery (IOR)/ Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) policy, the National Oil Companies (NOCs) are expected to adopt new/ budding technologies to enhance oil recovery from fields. The government’s initiative also includes formation of a policy framework for relaxations, extensions and clarifications at the development and production stage. These extension procedures of the policy framework are included under the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) regime, for early monetization of hydrocarbon discoveries. The government further allows the ‘policy for exploration in the areas covered under the Mining Lease’, even after the expiry of exploration period. The governmental initiative also encourages exploration and exploitation of alternative energy sources such as Coal Bed Methane (CBM), Shale Gas/Shale Oil and Gas Hydrates, among others, by the National Oil Companies under the nomination regime, the Minister informed.
May 6, 2015 | 6:14 pm IST.
.jpg)
to success.