Greater Noida, January 12 (IANS): India is encouraging domestic and global companies to explore potentially hydrocarbon-rich areas through stable and enabling policies towards achieving its goal of self-sufficiency in hydrocarbons by 2030, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Sunday.
He was inaugurating the 11th International Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition “Petrotech-2014” at the India Exposition Mart here, organised by state-run explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp. “We are encouraging domestic and global companies to explore potentially hydrocarbon-rich areas in the framework of a stable and enabling policy environment,” Manmohan Singh said. “We have made a number of changes in our energy policy regime in the past few months,” he noted.
The government will offer at least 56 oil and gas blocks in the 10th round of bidding under its New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP). This is the largest offering of blocks since the start of NELP in 1999 in an effort to attract more investments into the exploration and production sector.
Partnerships among various stakeholders were essential for meeting the emerging challenges of the oil and gas sector, he said. “Such partnerships could result in outcomes like improved recovery from mature fields, exploitation of ultra-deep water energy reserves and progress in complex frontier areas. They could also help in exploitation of unconventional forms of energy, apart from addressing concerns about environmental degradation and climate change,” the prime minister said.
“This entails work in several areas like demand management, energy conservation, energy efficiency and renewable energy technology. It also requires focused research and development initiatives.”
