National   

Oil search to cover sedimentary basin

NEW DELHI: Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora on Sunday disclosed that his Ministry had drawn up an ambitious plan to explore the oil and gas potential in the country and by 2015, the entire Indian sedimentary basin would be brought under exploration activity.

Mr. Deora said with the demand for oil and gas going up and crude oil prices witnessing volatile trading, the need to step up internal exploration and production had grown tremendously as the country was a major importer of petroleum products.

Under the new initiative, exploration activity would cover 80 per cent of the area in the country during the 11th Plan.

At the conclusion of six rounds of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), 162 production sharing contracts were signed and the area under exploration had increased four times to 44 per cent of the sedimentary basin. Before implementing the NELP, 11 per cent of the sedimentary basin area was under exploration.

As the development of exploration and production sector had been significantly boosted through NELP, the government this past week launched the Seventh Round of global bidding.

Mr. Deora said that the cumulative production of Coal Bed Methane (CBM) gas till October 31 was 4.7 Million Standard Cubic Metre (MMSCM).

He said commercial production and sale of CBM gas had commenced in July this year from the block Raniganj South in West Bengal operated by the Great Eastern Energy Corporation Limited (GEECL).

Mr. Deora said Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) would be the government nominee under Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) for the entire PSC period to receive the gas produced from Panna-Mukta and Tapti (PMT) fields at PSC price and terms.

It had also been decided that the PMT joint venture would commence supplies of all un-contracted or surplus quantities to GAIL ensuring greater availability of natural gas to the fertilizer and power sectors.

Mr. Deora said despite massive rise in prices, the government had not increased the price of petroleum products in accordance with the directions of the United Progressive Alliance chairperson, Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who had asked him not to burden the common man.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

U.S. concern on climate change deal not warranted: Sibal
Combat aircraft engine: Eurojet ready to help
No rapprochement with Sharad, Nitish: Fernandes
LJP withdraws candidate
Jamwal: no troop movement along Chinese border
Oil search to cover sedimentary basin
Pakistan objects to power projects in J&K
Bollywood rediscovers Kashmir
Vijay Diwas
Law mooted to bring disabled into mainstream
School boy’s father remanded

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu