Steps being taken to boost domestic hydrocarbon production, says Minister
The Government is spending about Rs.7,500 crore for acquisition of onshore-offshore seismic data and drilling of stratigraphic wells to make quality data of Indian Sedimentary Basins available to bidders, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry Suresh Gopi updated Lok Sabha on 5 Dec http://mopng.gov.in.
The Government has also approved acquisition of additional 2D Seismic data of 20,000 LKM across onshore acreages and 30,000 LKM across offshore beyond Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of India http://ongcindia.com.
The Government has been taking various steps to boost domestic oil and gas production and accelerate the pace of exploration activities which, inter-alia, include:
i. Policy under PSC regime for early monetization of hydrocarbon discoveries, 2014 https://www.opec.org/opec_web/en/.
ii. Discovered Small Field Policy, 2015.
iii. Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP), 2016.
iv. Policy for Extension of PSCs, 2016 and 2017.
v. Policy for early monetization of Coal Bed Methane, 2017.
vi. Setting up of National Data Repository, 2017.
vii. Appraisal of Un-appraised areas in Sedimentary Basins under National Seismic Programme, 2017.
viii. Policy framework for extension of PSCs for Discovered Fields and Exploration Blocks under Pre-New Exploration Licensing Policy (Pre-NELP), 2016 and 2017.
ix. Policy to Promote and Incentivize Enhanced Recovery Methods for Oil and Gas, 2018.
x. Policy Framework for exploration and exploitation of Unconventional Hydrocarbons under Existing Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs), Coal Bed Methane (CBM) Contracts and Nomination Fields, 2018.
xi. Natural Gas Marketing Reforms, 2020.
xii. Lower Royalty Rates, Zero Revenue Share (till Windfall Gain) and no drilling commitment in Phase-I in OALP Blocks under Category II and III basins to attract bidders.
xiii. Release of about 1 million sq km ‘No-Go’ area in offshore which were blocked for exploration for decades.
Currently, about ~13% of oil and ~53% of gas are domestically produced by E&P companies, he informed the house.
Exploration and Production (E&P) contributes to reducing the country’s dependence on imported oil and gas through various mechanisms.
Production of crude oil has been 29.36 MMT during 2023-24 and 14.4 MMT (provisionally) during the current year 2024-25.
As per International Energy Agency, projected demand of oil and petrol in India, by 2030, would be 6.6 mb/d (million barrel per day) and 1.0 mb/d respectively https://fieo.org/ .
Further, India’s energy consumption is increasing continuously, due to sustained economic growth over the last few years, through industrialisation, urbanisation, transportation needs, infrastructure development, rising income, improved standard of living, increased access to modern energy coupled with increase in private consumption and gross fixed capital formation, etc. resulting in increasing import of crude oil, the minister said https://mnre.gov.in/. fiinews.com
