In a bid to reduce crude oil imports and to enhance oil and gas production, the government has set a target to reduce oil imports by 10 percent by 2021-22. Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has said that the government is taking several steps to enhance exploration and production of oil and gas in the country and assured that there would be no conflict between oil & gas production and agriculture farming.
The minister elaborated that oil companies are implementing new technologies to enhance recovery from ageing fields and are also taking several measures to revive the sick wells to increase oil production, such as improved Oil Recovery/Enhanced Oil Recovery schemes.
At present, the crude oil import account for 82 per cent of the total domestic consumption and for last financial year, the same was at 80.9 per cent. Over the last three financial years, the amount of imported crude has been on the rise. In 2013-14, it stood at 77.6 per cent and rose to 78.5 per cent in 2014-15.