Govt Working To Enhance Exploration, Production Of Oil And Gas In Country To Reduce Crude Import: MoS Petroleum

The government is making all efforts to reduce crude oil imports and has taken several steps to enhance exploration and production of oil and gas in the country, the MoS Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameswar Teli told the Parliament on Wednesday (4 August).

"The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas is working in collaboration with various Central Government ministries to achieve the goal to reduce the dependency on import of oil and gas," Teli said in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.

"The five-pronged strategy, comprises promoting energy efficiency and conservation measures, giving thrust on demand substitution, promoting biofuels and other alternate fuels/renewables, increasing domestic production of oil and gas and refinery process improvements," the minister said.

The government has taken several steps to enhance exploration and production of oil and gas in the country such as policy for relaxations, extensions and clarifications under Production Sharing Contract (PSC) regime for early monetisation of hydrocarbon discoveries, discovered Small Field Policy, he added.

Further, the government is also promoting the usage of environment friendly transportation fuel, i.e. CNG by expanding the coverage of City Gas Distribution (CGD) network in the country, the minister said.

A number of initiatives has been taken by the government to encourage the use of alternative fuels like ethanol and bio-diesel through Ethanol Blending in Petrol (EBP) Programme and Bio-diesel blending in diesel.

To promote use of compressed bio gas, the government has launched Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) and has also formulated National Bio Fuel Policy 2018 to boost availability of biofuels in country, he added.