The Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Shri Dharmendra Pradhan has invited the private investors to participate and make the most of the India growth story. Speaking at the roadshow for Discovered Small Field-II bids in Abu Dhabi on Monday, he said that in the last four years, we have made giant strides in oil and gas sector, however the best is yet to come. No country, international organization or company alone can go far without partnership and collaboration.
Shri Pradhan said that India is presently the 3rd largest energy consumer in the world. Energy consumption in India in the past decade has increased at a compound annual growth rate of more than 5%. In future too, energy consumption in India is expected to rise by more than 4% annually. Globally, majority of the growth in energy demand is going to come from India. Our oil & gas demand is expected to increase nearly 3 fold from 229 Million Metric Tons currently to 607 Million Metric Tons in 2040. He said that there are several bright prospects in upstream oil and gas sector in India.
The Minister said that Government of India has undertaken measures to overhaul the policy framework encompassing the entire energy value chain to ensure energy security for the country. One of the most important area of focus to ensure energy security is towards the E&P sector. Both Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy and Discovered Small Fields Policy are progressive measures aimed at facilitating investment for exploration in Indian acreages.55 blocks spread across 10 sedimentary basins under maiden Bid Round of Open Acreages Licensing Policy wererecently awarded after a gap of 6 years. Earlier in 2016, Government had launched Discovered Small Fields Bid Round-I which was a sterling success with 30 contract areas being awarded to 20 companies. The successful completion of DSF Round-I and OALP-I has given us immense confidence, and the second round of DSF and OALP are being launched. Describing this as an unparalleled opportunity, Shri Pradhan said DSF II includes 60 discoveries with an estimated in-place reserve of over 195 Million Metric Tons of Oil and Oil Equivalent Gas. OALP Bid Round II includes 14 Blocks with a total area of 29,233 Square Kilometer.
Shri Pradhan said that the Government has also brought out various others policy reformsincluding such as Coal Bed Methane policy, incentivize Enhanced Recovery for augmenting production of oil and gas from matured fields, exploration and exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbon from all fields. He said that a state of the art National Data Repository has been set up which is a database of all the geo-scientific data of hydrocarbon resources in the country. National Data Repository is equipped with cutting edge technology and provides ready access to interested companies.
The Minister said that India accords high priority to promoting a gas based and clean economy.Currently natural gas forms a relatively small share of our energy mix. Gas infrastructure projects of over 8 billion US dollars are under implementation across the country. We aim to increase share of natural gas in energy mix from current 6.5% to 15% by 2022. Going forward, we intend to create a robust natural gas trading hub. The process to formalise the concept has already been initiated by our Government.
