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Destination India
  • Destination India
The Indian economy is a net importer of almost all forms of energy. This fact, coupled with the growing energy needs, has intensified discussions on energy security for the country. The government is actively seeking private participation in the energy chain and is also promoting acquisition of oil & gas reserves overseas. Back home, the rapidly growing Indian economy requires huge investment in the energy sector. Strong private sector participation is required to suplement public sector and bring in the required investment and technologies. Policies have increasingly recognized the need to promote private investment. Private interest in oil & gas exploration and power sector has increased significantly Government is making efforts to diversify the fuel basket by increasing share of Natural Gas, Hydro and Nuclear energy. At the same time, both the Government and private sector companies are looking to acquire equity in energy assets abroad.

To increase upstream investments, the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas formulated New Exploration licensing Policy (NELP) in 1999 providing level playing field for all the investors and providing several concessions and incentives to attract investment and technology. Under the policy blocks for exploration are awarded through global competitive bidding process which is most transparent. So far seven bidding rounds have been held resulting in award of 203 blocks.

Eighth round of bidding is currently in process which has been launched recently along with fourth round for Coal Bed Methane blocks. Government of India is offering the highest ever number of 70 oil & gas exploration blocks covering an area of about 1,63,535 Sq. Km. and also making a simultaneous offer of 10 blocks under the fourth round of Coal Bed Methane Policy (CBM-IV) for exploration and production of Coal Bed Methane. The blocks offered under CBM-IV cover an area of about 5000 Sq.Km. and are spread over seven States.

The NELP-VIII licensing round has been put on offer against a backdrop of continued exploration success. Under NELP, 71 oil and gas discoveries have already been made in 19 exploration blocks. Hydrocarbon accretion has already been more than 600 Million Metric Tonnes of oil & oil equivalent of gas. First deepwater crude oil and natural gas production has commenced from NELP-I block KG-DWN-98/3(D-6). With this, the gas production from the eastern part of the country would double the present production of gas and in monetary terms, it would be worth about US$ 42 billion.

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