Domestic oil exploration and production (E&P) companies should adopt a radical approach to boost output and achieve energy security, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said today.
"For the past three years, our domestic crude production is static. A radical approach is urgently required to boost our domestic output," Pradhan said.
Pointing out that achieving energy security for the country is a challenging and complex task, Pradhan said the government has taken several initiatives for the E&P sector.
"Discovery of new hydrocarbon sources should be the primary objective of E&P industry.
"I believe that a huge area in the country remains unexplored," he said, adding that a major portion of hydrocarbon reserves in the country are in technologically challenging areas.
The minister was addressing the inaugural session of the international conference and exhibition of Society of Petroleum Geophysicists (SPG) here.
ONGC Chairman D K Saraf said the government's initiatives like diesel price decontrol, director transfer of LPG subsidy, and encouraging people to give up subsidy have helped the companies reduce their burden.
He said the decline in price of oil in international market has helped save foreign exchange.
Nearly 1,000 delegates are participating in the three-day conference in which challenges and technological advancements in the sector will be discussed.
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Referring to geoscience technologies as the key link in improving exploration for the oil and gas sector in the country, the Union Minister said there is immense potential in unappraised sedimentary basins.
"We need to fast-track exploration, with collective collaboration between the government and the geoscientific community.
"This is only way to reduce our growing dependence on imported oil," he said while citing the Prime Minister's call to reduce import dependence by 10 per cent by 2022.
Petroleum Secretary K D Tripathi said that to realise the untapped potential in the country's sedimentary basins, especially in Mannar, Bengal and Andaman deep-waters, geoscientists need to challenge the old concepts and look for new ones.
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Later, Pradhan dedicated to the nation Bharat Petroleum Corporation's 211-km long multi-product pipeline from Kota-Jobner and a petroleum product storage and distribution installation built at a combined cost of Rs 421 crore at Asalpur, 40 km from here.
"Despite newer installations, ... Rajasthan used to face some disruption in petroleum products supply by one to two weeks in a year, but now Kota-Jobner pipeline and installation would solve this very problem in future," the minister said.
Pradhan said the domestic gas pipeline would be laid in Rajasthan's four smart cities of Jaipur, Udaipur, Ajmer, and Kota. Though LPG gas pipeline work in Kota was near completion, and works in three cities; Jaipur, Udaipur, and Ajmer would be taken up soon, he said.
He said that there were 27 crore households in the country, of which 16 crore households were having the LPG connection facility.
The Union Minister also appealed well-off families to give-up the gas subsidy so that the remaining households could be extend the facility of domestic gas connection and the poor could be benefited.
After independence of about 70 years, cooking fuel has not reached the villages, and rich people should "give up subsidy" in the interest of poor people, he said. Pradhan also assured the state government of all necessary help, assistance to meet basic needs in the desired sectors so the economy improves and prosperity come.
S Vardhrajan, Chairman and Managing Director of BPCL said the demand supply of petroleum products would be ensured in the districts of Jaipur, Ajmer, Sikar, Jhunjhunun, Churu and Sawai Mahopur through the facilities of Kota-Jobner Multi-product Pipeline and Jobner Terminal of Bharat Petroleum. The costs of these two facilities would be Rs 276 crore and Rs 145 crore respectively.
Union Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore said that the Chief Minister has created an atomsphere conducive for investment in the state.
New big companies would invest here, which would result in strengthening of infrastructure and expansion of development, he said.
