India will send a technical team to the United States and Japan to prepare a blueprint for building strategic oil reserves for the 70 per cent import-dependant country as an insurance against contingencies like disruption of supplies.
"On the invitation of the US Department of Energy, I visited the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at Bryan Mound site in Texas last week. They (US) offered to support any industry expertise required by India to create its own strategic petroleum reserves," Petroleum Minister Ram Naik told reporters in New Delhi.
Technical teams, comprising of experts from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Engineers India Ltd and Indian Oil Corporation, would visit the US shortly to prepare a blueprint for phased building of 45 days strategic oil reserves, he said.
"US stores 700 million barrels (about 95 million tonnes) reserves in salt caverns. We don't have such natural gifts and therefore facilities at other countries like Japan, which stock oil in steel containers would also be examined," he said adding the expert committee would prepare its report in 6 months after which it would go to the Cabinet.
The capital cost of building 45 days' reserves (15 million tonnes) would be Rs 4350 crore (Rs 43.5 billion).
In the first phase, 15-days' reserves are being planned. "The location, sourcing of crude, type of storage, maintenance and the means of construction and cost of crude will be explored," Naik said.
The minister said India stores reserves at four sites with current inventory of 604 million barrel (82 million tonnes). The draw-down capability of these four reserves is 4.4 million barrels per day. The US has plans to expand the capacity to 1000 million barrels (135 million tonnes).
Roadshows highly successful
Terming his 3-nation roadshows to promote investment in oil and gas exploration in India as successful, Naik said he expected big names to bid for 24 oil and gas blocks and 9 coal bed methane blocks on offer.
"The recent discoveries have made Indian acreage attractive to foreign investors. Response at the roadshows in London (June 5-6), Calgary (June 9-10) and Houston (June 11-12) was very encouraging," Naik told reporters.
The London roadshow was attended by 83 companies while 34 companies participated in Calgary roadshow and 66 companies were present at the promotional roadshow in Houston.
The firms which attended the roadshows included Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BG Group, Occidental Oil, Chevron-Texaco, Marathon, British Petroleum, BHP, Saudi Aramco, Amerada Hess, Cairn Energy, Encana and Talisman Energy.
While companies like BG, Cairn Energy, Niko Resources, ONGC and Reliance shared their operating experiences and success stories in India, senior US and UK government officials were also present at the roadshows.
Ian Lockhart, international director, Department of Trade and Industries, UK and Vickey Bailey, Assistant Secretary, Department of Energy of US also spoke at the London and Houston roadshows respectively.
C M Smith, Assistant Secretary, Department of Energy, USA met Naik and discussed the areas of cooperation in Gas Hydrates, exporation and production and strategic petroleum storage.
The roadshow at Houston on June 12 to promote CBM blocks saw 32 companies including CDX Gas and Burlington Resources participate, Naik said.
