Shri Ram Naik, Minister of Petroleum & Natural
Gas has said that the significant discoveries of Hydrocarbon made
recently in India have greatly enhanced the prospects of finding
oil and gas in India. This will go along way towards changing
the perceptions about the hydrocarbon potential of the country.
Inaugurating a seminar on "Changing Indian Petro Sector – Challenges
and Opportunities" here today, Shri Naik emphasized that the coming
4th round of offering blocks under New Exploration
Licensing Policy (NELP-IV) would be attractive for the investors
to take part in bidding. The NELP-IV his expected to be announced
in April 2003.
In addition to a series of discoveries earlier,
the consortium of Reliance Industries Limited and Niko Resources
of Canada reported a major gas discovery in a deep warter block
in the Krishana Godavari (KG) offshore area on 30.10.2002 with
preliminary gas reserve estimates of about 7 trillion cubic feet.
Similarly, Niko Resources made another gas discovery on land near
Surat in Gujarat in a block awarded under NELP-II. Earlier, Cairn
Energy in the KG Basin, Sanchaur Basin of Rajasthan and Cambay
offshore near Gujarat and ONGC in Vasai and KG deep water have
also discovered oil and gas.
Referring to the acceleration in efforts towards
increasing self reliance in oil and gas, Shri Ram Naik said that
in three rounds of NELP, 47 production sharing contracts have
been signed since 2000. With the approval for awarding 23 more
blocks, in all 70 blocks have been awarded in less than three
years as against 22 in the previous 10 years. The initiative to
obtain oil equity abroad has also been given a big boost with
ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) signing an agreement on 29.10.2002 with
Talisman Energy Inc. of Canada to acquire 25% interest in a producing
oil field in Sudan. Thus OVL has acquired about 3 millions tons
per annum of crude oil at an investment of about Rs.3,600 crore
in the field currently producing about 12 million tons a year.
This is in addition to 20% stake acquired by OVL in Sakhalin Project
in Russia for Rs.8,500 crore in 2001.
The Minister also referred to several other initiatives
in the Indian Hydrocarbon Sector that will benefit the consumers
by fostering competition, attracting investments and initiating
efforts to improve the quality of fuels and encouraging use of
alternative fuels and technology. These include self-sufficiency
in refining capacity, which has reached 116.5 million tons from
68 million tons in 1996-97. Marketing rights have been granted
to new companies to add about 8,700 petrol pumps which is 40%
of the existing strength of 19,000. To address the problem of
vehicular pollution, oil industry has implemented process modification
projects worth over Rs.10,000 crore in refineries. This has led
to introduction of unleaded petrol, reduction of sulphur content
in diesel from 1.0% to 0.25% in the entire country and to 0.05%
in four metro cities. To meet the fuel quality and emission norms
suggested by the Expert Committee on National Fuel Policy, about
Rs.18,000 crore would require to be invested by 2005 and Rs. 12,000
crore by 2010 in the refineries. Government has made use of 5%
ethanol in petrol mandatory from 1.1.2003 in 9 States and 4 Union
Territories during in the first phase. This would be extended
to the whole country as also the percentage of ethanol would be
increased. The ethanol petrol-blending programme would benefit
sugarcane-growing farmers with better returns as ethanol is obtained
from sugarcane molasses.
