With a view to reassess the oil and gas potential of the country, Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily has announced setting up of a Multi-Organisational Team (MOT) to re-examine India’s hydrocarbon resources in all 26 sedimentary basins in the country. The MOT will be headed by the Oil Secretary, and will comprise exploration heads of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Oil India and one official from the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH). Highlighting that the two-decade old estimate of oil and gas reserves in India seems outdated, the Minister noted that the previous such exercise was undertaken two decades ago under which only 15 sedimentary basins were studied, putting India's oil and gas resource potential at a fraction of the 206 billion barrels of oil and oil-equivalent gas.
Presently, only 0.93 million sq km area in India is held under exploration and production in 19 basins as compared to total estimated sedimentary area of 3.14 million square kilometers, comprising 26 sedimentary basins. The oil ministry has emphasized the need for the fresh estimation in the remaining 11 sedimentary basins and asked the MOT to estimate the resources of all 3.14 million square kilometers of the 26 sedimentary basins and prepare a basin-wise portfolio. MOT will carry out the resource assessment at ONGC's Keshav Dev Majviy Institute of Petroleum Exploration (KDMIPE) in Dehradun. DGH to assess the hydrocarbon resources, while, KDMIPE will utilise the geo-scientific data available with them. Furthermore, a National Steering Committee has also set up to periodically review the work done by KDMIPE.
Oil ministry has formulated a roadmap for cutting India's dependence on imports to meet its oil and gas needs. India currently imports around 80 percent of its oil needs and the Ministry wants this to be cut to 50 percent by 2020 and by 25 percent in 2025 through intensive exploration and exploitation of untapped reserves. India will offer at least 46 oil and gas blocks soon under the 10th round of NELP auction under completely revamped terms. Tenth round of NELP auction will be the second highest offering of blocks since the advent of NELP in 1997, a common platform for public and private sector companies to bid for the blocks.
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