Oil and gas companies seek pandemic relief in the upcoming Budget

The Centre had considered tax sops for exploration and production operators in May 2020

The Budget may provide an opportunity to the Centre to apply some balm to the bruised domestic oil and gas exploration sector. With crude oil prices falling to record lows, even tumbling into negative territory for a day, the year 2020-2021 has severely hurt the balance sheets of exploration companies.

While the price of crude oil in India did not go into negative territory, it remained low enough to strain exploration and production (E&P) companies. 

Crude oil in India is traded close to the Brent, a price that is the benchmark for African, European, and Middle Eastern crude oil.

“With Brent trading below