Exploration of Oil and Gas

The Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum & Natural Gas Shri Dharmendra Pradhan informed that. Government takes various policy & administrative initiatives to facilitate hydrocarbon exploration in the country. Some of the policy decisions taken by the Government in recent years to enhance Exploration and Production (E&P) activities can be brought out as:

1. Policy to grant relaxation, extension & classifications at development & production stage for early monetization of hydrocarbon discoveries.
2. Discovered Small Field Policy.

   iii. Unified Licensing Policy- new Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing  policy.

1. Policy for Grant of Extension to small & medium sized discovered fields.
2. Policy for marketing freedom for gas produced from Deepwater & Ultra Deepwater areas.

The level of exploration and production activities depend on various factors including prospectivity of a region.

Exploration blocks are awarded through International Competitive Bidding process in a transparent manner based on the quantified Bid Evaluation Criteria. Investment decisions are taken by the contracts keeping in view the provisions in the Production Sharing Contract signed with the Government.

The details of exploratory work carried out by ONGC, OIL and Pvt. JV companies since inception are as under:-

Company	2D(Line- Kilometer)	3D (Square- Kilometer)
OIL- Nomination	73948.67	14248.72
ONGC-Nomination	882315.89	112375.79
Pvt JV(including ONGC/OIL)-Under PSC regime	375116	282310.4
Total	1331380.56	408934.91

Under PSC regime, 282 exploration blocks have been awarded for exploration of oil and gas so far. Production of Oil /Gas has commenced in 6 nos. of Pre-NELP exploration blocks and 11 nos. of NELP blocks.

The details of production of crude oil/gas from the hydrocarbon blocks awarded for exploration are at Annexure-I.

The Ministry is monitoring projects costing Rs 100 crore and above. Out of these at present, the following projects are reported to be stalled/kept on hold:

1. GAIL: Kochi-Koottanad-Bangalore-Mangalore Pipeline Phase-II: The matter is sub-judice at Supreme Court of India.
2. IOCL CBR-Trichy Pipeline: On hold as a direct fall out of above mentioned court case.
3. IOCL Ennore-Trichhy-Madurai LPG Pipeline: On hold as a direct fall out of above mentioned court case.
4. GAIL: Surat Paradip Pipeline Project: Due to delay in development of Gas sources and absence of anchor gas customer along the pipeline route.

The Government has formulated a new Hydrocarbon Exploration & Licensing Policy.

The prices of Petrol and Diesel have been made market determined by the Government effective with 26^th June, 2010 and 19^th October, 2014 respectively. Since then, the Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) take appropriate decision on pricing of Petrol and Diesel in line with their international prices and other market conditions.

In order to protect the consumers from the fluctuations in the prices in the international market, the Government continues to modulate the Retail Selling Price of Subsidized domestic LPG and PDS Kerosene and their basic prices have not been revised after 25^th June, 2011.

Annexure-I

Bidding Round	Exploration  Block	State	Operator	Year of Commencement of Production	Cumulative Production since Inception till February, 2016 from Exploration blocks awarded Under PSC regime
					Oil+ Condensate (TMT)	GAS (MSCM)
NELP	CB-ONN-2000/2	Gujarat	Niko Resource Limited	2003-04	0	692560.74
NELP	CB-ONN-2000/1	Gujarat	Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Limited (GSPC)	2007-08	331.83	9161.02
NELP	KG-DWN-98/3	Offshore	Reliance Industries Limited	2008-09	3520.24	73874317.71
NELP	CB-ONN-2002/3	Gujarat	GSPC	2012-13	0.49	0
NELP	CB-ONN-2003/2	Gujarat	GSPC	2012-13	4.88	194.2
NELP	KG-OSN-2001/3	Offshore	GSPC	2012-13	6.94	240416.8
NELP	CB-ONN-2002/1	Gujarat	ONGC	2013-14	0.13	0
NELP	CB-ONN-2004/1	Gujarat	ONGC	2014-15	0.83	0
NELP	CB-ONN-2004/2	Gujarat	ONGC	2014-15	1	0
NELP	CB-ONN-2001/1	Gujarat	ONGC	2015-16	0.67	0
NELP	CY-ONN-2002/2	Tamilnadu	ONGC	2015-16	5.66	500.45
Pre-NELP	CB-OS/2	Gujarat	Tata Petrodyne Limited	2002-03	3118.1	6592525.57
Pre-NELP	CB-ON/7	Gujarat	Hindustan Oil Exploration Company	2004-05	112.86	8701.06
Pre-NELP	RJ-ON-90/1	Rajasthan	Cairn Energy Limited	2006-07	46656.13	2736993.81
Pre-NELP	CB-ON/3	Gujarat	Essar Oil Limited	2007-08	12.6	437.23
Pre-NELP	CB-ON/2	Gujarat	GSPC	2009-10	44.06	33640.64
Pre-NELP	RJ-ON/6	Rajasthan	Focus Energy Limited	2010-11	10.63	1148967.82
					53827.04	85338417.06