With an aim to enhance country’s oil and gas production and increase investments in the sector, Oil Ministry is planning to overhaul the exploration policy. Ministry is also planning to set stiff targets for state explorers like ONGC to reverse the declining trend in oil and gas output in recent years.
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has asserted that oil ministry will replace the 15-year old production sharing regime, which has produced more controversies and less oil and gas. Among 252 allocated blocks, only 3 have come to production stage. Oil Minister added that new exploration regime to encourage investors’ confidence to invest more in oil and gas exploration and production and require minimal government intervention. ONGC and Oil India have been given a 10 percent improvement target and top most on priority is monetisation of small and marginal fields lying with ONGC with help of private investment as well as technology.
Dharmendra Pradhan further added that natural gas pipeline network in the country will be doubled to 30,000 kilometres by 2019 to expand the reach of environment-friendly fuel. Also, state refineries are being asked to improve efficiencies to become globally competitive even as fuel retailing is opened up for competition.
At present, India spends around $145 billion annually to import crude oil mainly from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. India currently is the fourth largest oil consumer in the world behind the US, China and Japan, and imports around 80 percent of its oil needs. It is estimated that India will become the world's largest oil importer by 2020. So far, the country had not invested much in intensive exploration and exploitation of untapped oil and gas reserves in the country. Presently, only around 0.93 million sq km area in India is held under exploration and production as compared to total estimated sedimentary area of 3.14 million square kilometres.
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