World Energy Council
INDIAN MEMBER COMMITTEE
AN OVERVIEW OF INDIA’S HYDROCARBON POLICY By DR AVINASH CHANDRA Director General, DGH
Energy is an essential requirement for economic development and an important prerequisite for improving quality of life. Within commercial energy, oil & gas have been playing an increasingly important role in the development of economies throughout the world and India is no exception. In the last 50 years, the oil & gas sector has taken giant strides to meet the growing energy needs of the Indian economy. The country has built up a large petroleum industrial network encompassing every facet of the oil & gas business including exploration, production, refining, transportation and marketing. It is imperative to have a long-term policy for the hydrocarbon sector in order to facilitate meeting the long-term needs of the country. Issues such as energy security for strategic and defence purposes, making the hydrocarbon sector globally competitive and ensuring the development of free market in the hydrocarbon sector need to be addressed whilst formulating a hydrocarbon policy for India. The Govt. of India has come out with a policy document "India Hydrocarbon Vision 2025- which 1ays down the framework which would guide policies for the hydrocarbon sector for the next 25 years. The radical restructuring of the Indian economy since 1991 has led to opening up of the economy to the private sector. Recent initiatives in Oil & Gas exploration, Natural Gas, Refining marketing and infrastructure have resulted in enormous opportunities for private enterprise in the high growth areas. Out of 26 sedimentary basins in the country, production has so far been undertaken in only 7 basins and almost two-third of the total sedimentary area remains unexplored/poorly explored. Out of a hydrocarbon resource base of around 30 billion tonnes, in place reserves account for 6.8 billion tonnes. The E&P policy entails carrying out extensive and intensive...