India Unveils New Norms For Hydrocarbons Licensing, Pricing

By siliconindia | Friday, 11 March 2016, 10:28 Hrs

The oil minister said production contracts on some of the discovered fields could not be signed during last two decades due to a number of reasons, including arbitration proceedings, court cases, observations by the official auditor on "gold plating" of costs and alleged scandals.

"Resources worth more than 261,000 crore will be brought into production as the result of today's cabinet decisions," Pradhan said. "The decisions will also go a long way in generating employment, enhance transparency and reduce administrative discretion."

He said the new exploration and licensing policy will allow production of both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons, including shale gas and coal-bed methane, under a single license. "It also provides for marketing freedom for crude oil and natural gas produced from the blocks."

Among the other decisions of the cabinet pertaining to the oil and gas sector, a 8,000-crore outlay was provided to extend subsidised cooking gas to 50 million poor families in the name of the woman member, and the extension of contracts for 28 older hydrocarbon blocks.

This apart, the cabinet cancelled the Ratna and R-Series field contract awarded in 1996 to a consortium of Essar Oil and Oil Pacific UK.

In his budget speech last month, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said the government will extend incentives for the discovery and exploration of gas by providing companies the freedom to market the output.

"India is blessed with rich natural resources including oil and gas. However, their discovery and exploitation has been below our potential. Imports of hydrocarbons occupy a large share of India's total imports," Jaitley said.

"As part of our drive towards self-sufficiency, the government is considering to incentivise gas production from deep-water, ultra deep-water and high pressure-high temperature areas, which are presently not exploited on account of higher cost and higher risks," he said.

He said companies will be provided calibrated marketing freedom, and also a pre-determined ceiling price discovered from global benchmarks.

Source: IANS