(PTI)
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi setting steep target of cutting reliance on imports, the Oil Ministry has intensified monitoring of oil and gas fields given to state-owned firms like ONGC to avoid slippages in domestic output. Modi, in March 2015, had called for cutting India’s dependence on imports to meet oil needs by 10 per cent by 2022, from 77 per cent then. However, India’s import dependence has since only risen to 81 per cent.
“Most of our production of oil and gas come from nomination fields with ONGC and Oil India. We have now started monitoring those fields and have given new benchmarks to the national oil companies to increase production,” Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said at an industry event. He said that oil recovery from reservoirs internationally is 35-40 per cent and that for gas is 55-70 per cent. “In India, the current recovery factors of ONGC and Oil India for crude oil are as low as 27 per cent and 23 per cent. In case of natural gas, it is 54 per cent and 43 per cent for ONGC and Oil India, respectively,” he said.
