OREANDA-NEWS. November 26, 2015. The Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan inaugurated the three day SPE Oil and Gas International Conference organized by the Society of Petroleum Engineers in Mumbai today.             

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan said that the low oil prices are a challenge to the upstream industry but it has also resulted in lowering the cost of exploration and related services and we need to convert this challenge into  opportunity to upscale production.

Shri Pradhan said that only half of India’s sedimentary basins have been explored and there is an immense potential in the remaining half. Exploration of the remaining half should be taken up on top priority in order to curb imports by ten percent by 2022 as envisioned by the Prime Minister.

Shri Pradhan emphasized on the aptness of the conference theme of “Converting Resources into Production” and shared the various Policy initiatives of the Government like uniform licensing policy, pricing and marketing freedom and easy to administer revenue sharing models.

Shri Pradhan pointed out that suitable project management and technology innovation can resolve half of the problems of upstream oil companies even under the volatile price regime.

Shri K D Tripathi, Secretary MoPNG said that besides conventional oil we need to look at the potential of unconventional sources like shale oil and gas, CBM, Gas Hydrates etc. Shri Tripathi noted that the second Gas Hydrate Program which has been completed recently has shown remarkable potential, which needs to be tapped .

ShriU P Singh, Additional Secretary MoPNG shared the interventions of the government in increasing the exploration activity like Pre NELP, NELP and subsequent new formula for gas pricing, policy on marginal fields, uniform licensing policy, freedom of pricing, open acreage policy and the role of Maximum Government and Minimum Governance. He said the government was proactively taking all possible measures to provide a conducive environment to both Indian and foreign firms so that E&P activity in India could be developed.

In his address Shri D K Sarraf , CMD ONGC said that this is not the first time that the oil sector is facing the challenge of low pricing .Shri Sarraf emphasized on the need for resilience in financial , operationaland portfolio management to stay afloat in the current market scenario. He stressed on the need for innovative approach and stressed on the need to monetize the marginal fields, managing the deepwater, and reversing the tide.