Projects worth over $20 billion, ranging from the decade-long Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline to various oil and gas exploration and production projects, are being re-considered, said officials in the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
"India offers attractive opportunities for foreign investors in petroleum sector under the seventh round of the New Exploration Licensing Policy," Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dinsha Patel said on Thursday, while inaugurating a Road Show in Calgary .
The government is giving top priority to making available 581 MMSCMD of gas required by power projects in the country, Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday.
The government will allow exploration firm Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Gas Authority of India to market domestic LPG to increase penetration of cooking fuel to 75 per cent of the population.
India will step up efforts to find new oil and gas fields as the country's largest oil producer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation expects output from its existing fields to drop sharply in next few years.
The government may consider a public-private partnership (PPP) mode for setting up national gas highways to ensure distribution across the country.
Arun Kumar Singh, former chairman of oil refining and marketing company BPCL, was on Wednesday appointed chairman and managing director of ONGC -- the first instance of a retired person being appointed the head of a Maharatna PSU. "The Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) has approved the proposal of ministry of petroleum and natural gas for appointment of Arun Kumar Singh, ex-CMD, BPCL as chairman, ONGC for a three-year tenure with effect from the date of his assumption of charge of the post," an official order said. PTI first reported of Singh's appointment on November 17.
ONGC Videsh (OVL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), is eyeing more gas fields in Libya.
IndianOil Corp Ltd, for instance, saw a growth of around 22 per cent in volumes and nearly two per cent in its market share. It traded nearly 10,517 million tonnes (mt) of auto gas in December against 8,593 mt of auto gas in September.
Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar will visit Dhaka and Yangon in January to explore the possibility of laying a natural gas pipeline from Myanmar to India via Bangladesh.
India is the third largest consumer of petroleum products, after the US and China.
Eight companies are in the fray for rolling out gas networks in six cities, bids for which were invited by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board. The deadline for submission of the bids expired on Tuesday.
Modi said the push towards a gas-based economy where the share of environment-friendly fuel in the energy basket will be increased from 6.2 per cent to 15 per cent by 2030, will create lakhs of jobs and help meet India's COP-21 commitment of cutting emission intensity by 33-35 per cent.
OVL, along with global oil majors such as Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, British Petroleum, Total and China National Petroleum Corporation, is one of the 35 companies short-listed by the Iraqi government for the auction, which includes six oil-producing blocks with recoverable reserves of 40 billion barrels of oil, making it the largest such auction in the world.
Close on the heels of initiating a dialogue with Iran and Myanmar on importing gas through onland pipelines, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar will soon visit Turkmenistan and Afghanistan to explore the possibility of bringing natural gas from Ce
Earlier this week, the ministry had come out with a clarification, saying domestic gas producers had to stick to the earlier price of $4.2 a unit until a further notification from the new government.
Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co Ltd (RasGas) of Qatar has pulled out of state-run National Thermal Power Corporation's tender for supply of 3 million tonnes of LNG for its power plants.
Govt approved a formula, not a price; PetroMin says a substantial rise was inevitable.
The wholesale inflation rose for the third consecutive month in May at 2.61 per cent on account of rise in prices of food articles, especially vegetables, and manufactured items. The wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation was 1.26 per cent in the previous month. It was (-) 3.61 per cent in May 2023. "Positive rate of inflation in May, 2024 is primarily due to increase in prices of food articles, manufacture of food products, crude petroleum & natural gas, mineral oils, other manufacturing etc," the ministry of commerce & industry said in a statement on Friday.
India will begin importing gas in the form of liquefied natural gas from early 2004 to augment deficit in domestic production, Petroleum Minister Ram Naik said.
Lower crude oil costs and higher marketing margins are expected to raise the fortunes of oil marketing companies (OMCs) in the first quarter (Q1) of 2023-24 (FY24), while city gas distribution (CGD) companies could also benefit from lower spot prices of liquefied natural gas (LNG). However, in a break from the past, growth trends are expected to diverge for various segments within the broad energy sector. Analysts expect the earnings from gas production to go down for upstream national oil and gas companies such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India (OIL) due to the introduction of the new domestic gas pricing regime on April 1. After showing steep losses over the first half of 2022-23 (FY23), the marketing margins of OMCs have steadily recovered in four months.
The Petroleum Ministry has proposed a 33 per cent hike in the price of natural gas produced by ONGC and Oil India and gradually increase it to $4.20 per mmBtu set for gas from Reliance Industries' KG-D6 fields.
Of the 17.99 mmcmd gas allocated to the power sector, gas supply pacts of only 2.67 mmcmd allocated to NTPC remained to be signed. NTPC's opposition has also delayed the GSPA for a separate 2.7 mmcmd allocated to the Dabhol power plant and the same is now slated to be signed next week.
The consortium of Oil and Natural Gas Corp, Reliance Industries and BG Group of UK will continue selling gas from Panna/Mukta and Tapti fields to state-run gas firm GAIL
On instructions from the Prime Minister's Office for a more uniform distribution of the natural resource, the petroleum ministry had in December 2007 scrapped all contracts for sale of gas produced from PMT fields and nominated GAIL for selling it to 'fuel-starved' fertiliser plants outside Gujarat. But after protests, the ministry agreed to partly restore 3.6 million standard cubic meters per day of gas out of 5.1 mmscmd consumed by RIL's petrochemical plants.
The countdown for BG's stake sale in Gujarat Gas Company (GGCL) begins tomorrow. Three months after BG made its intention of divesting its stake clear, over half a dozen potential bidders are likely to submit non-binding bids for BG's 65.12 per cent stake in the country's largest natural gas distributor by sales.
ExxonMobil-owned RasGas will supply liquefied natural gas by December to restart the Dabhol power project in Maharashtra, a top official said on Friday.
Russia's state-owned oil firm Rosneft has agreed to supply up to 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil to Indian upstream oil and gas major Reliance Industries (RIL) in the largest-ever energy deal between the two countries, Reuters reported on Thursday. The 10-year agreement amounts to 0.5 per cent of global oil supply and is valued at roughly $13 billion per year at current prices, it said.
Reliance Industries Ltd's legal battle over the Uttar Pradesh government's decision to impose 21 per cent value-added tax on gas is holding up supply to NTPC's two power plants and Indian Oil Corporation's Mathura refinery, despite a group of ministers making allocation to them.
India is likely to sign a $145 billion deal by June to import natural gas from Iran through the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline after Tehran lowered the sale price by 30 per cent.
China has pipped India to sign a 30-year agreement to import natural gas from fields lying in Myanmar offshore where India's state-owned companies have 25 per cent stake.
Of the 10 coal bed methane blocks on offer, bids were received only for 8. RIL bid for one block. Of the 24 deep water blocks on offer, bids were received only for eight.
The Oil Industry Safety Directorate, under the Petroleum Ministry, carries out safety audits of oil and gas installations, besides formulating and standardising procedures and guidelines for design, operation and maintenance.
Iran on Friday invited India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to Tehran for signing a tri-nation deal on natural gas, supply of which could start from 2011.
The Indian government, said a senior official, wishes to take talks forward on the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project.
He was speaking on the sidelines of a function to inaugurate the new building to house the Environment Ministry.
