Steps to cut crude oil imports
The Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum & Natural Gas Shri Dharmendra Pradhan informed the Rajya Sabha in a written reply today that the requirement of crude oil imports is an inter-play of several factors like success in new production of crude oil, successful acquisition of assets or equity oil abroad, success in conservation efforts, etc. The country's crude oil import dependence based on domestic consumption of petroleum products was 78.4% during 2014-15. The production of State run oil companies stagnated during the last few years. However, in order to accelerate the pace of exploration and production of oil and gas in the country, the Government has taken various policy initiatives which are as under:-
i. A project to reassess hydrocarbon resources in all sedimentary basins of India.
ii. Appraisal of un-appraised areas of all sedimentary basins of India.
iii. Policy on non-exclusive multi-client speculative survey for assessment of unexplored sedimentary basins.
iv. Improved Oil Recovery(IOR)/Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)-new techniques are adopted by National Oil Companies (NOCs) to enhance oil recovery from fields.
v. Policy framework for relaxations, extensions and clarifications at the development and production stage under the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) regime for early monetization of hydrocarbon discoveries.
vi. Policy for exploration in the Mining Lease (ML) areas after the expiry of exploration period.
vii. Encouraging exploration and exploitation of alternative energy sources, such as Coal Bed Methane(CBM), Shale Gas/Shale Oil and Gas Hydrates etc.
viii. Policy for exploration and exploitation of Shale Gas/Shale Oil resources by NOCs under the nomination Regime.
During the year 2013-14 the production of crude oil was 37.788 Million Metric Tonnes (MMT) and during the year 2014-15 it was 37.460MMT.
MJPS/Rk
