(a) whether Government has launched any initiatives to create energy secure environment;
(b) if so, the details thereof; and
(c) the steps taken by the Government to become self-reliance in the field of petroleum products?
(a) whether Government has launched any initiatives to create energy secure environment;
(b) if so, the details thereof; and
(c) the steps taken by the Government to become self-reliance in the field of petroleum products?
MINISTER OF PETROLEUM & NATURAL GAS AND PANCHAYATI RAJ (SHRI MANI SHANKAR AIYAR)
(a) & (b): Energy Security is a priority issue in the National Common Minimum Programme and to this end a number of oil diplomacy initiatives have been taken to both encourage Foreign Direct Investment in exploration and production of domestic hydrocarbon resources, as well as to facilitate access to hydrocarbon resources abroad. Two Advisory Committees, on oil diplomacy for Energy Security and Synergy in Energy, have also been constituted.
(c): The Government have taken the following steps to meet the growing demand for hydrocarbons :
i. improve the recovery factor from existing major fields by implementing Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)/Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) schemes; in particular Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) has taken up 15 fields for this purpose at an estimated investment of Rs 10,000 crore, which would also help in accelerating oil production from these fields.
ii. increase exploration efforts through the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP); under the four rounds of NELP, Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) have been signed for 90 blocks. Bids for 20 exploration blocks have now been invited under NELP-V.
iii. speed up exploration efforts by ONGC and OIL in the blocks allocated to them on nomination basis
iv. explore in new areas, specially in the deep water and difficult frontier areas, as also explore in the deeper layers of already producing fields.
v. develop faster newly discovered fields and to step up the use of new technologies for seismic surveys, work over, stimulation operations, drilling of wells etc. in producing areas.
vi. acquire acreages abroad. ONGC-Videsh Ltd.(OVL), Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL), Gas Authority(India) Ltd. (GAIL) and Oil India Ltd.(OIL) have participating interest in acreages abroad.
vii. make efforts to import natural gas in the form of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as well as through trans-national pipelines from gas rich regions such as the Middle-East including Iran, Central Asia and South East Asia.
viii. it has been decided to set up strategic crude oil storage of 5 Million Metric Tonne (MMT) capacity as an emergency response mechanism against short term oil supply disruptions.