Oil Exploration

After 4 rounds of NELP, and awarding several basins, 36 discoveries have been found. Among them Reliance discovery of gas in KG basin and Cairn's discovery in Rajasthan are significant. Deep water exploration are considered now, as experts are of the view that most of the Indian oil reserves are more are less found. Now speculative surveys are carried to out in various regions for exploration.

Tank Farm Depots

Tankages also have to be increased to meet the demand and also for strategic purposes. Govt. of India is increasing its tank capacity in Rajkot, Mangalore and Vizag to increase its crude oil storage.

New Refineries

After privatization, India has attained self sufficiency in refining crude oil. The present refining capacity stands at 116.97 MMTPA against annual consumption of 103.6 MMTPA. India imports around 69% of crude and with the growing demand of petroleum products, India has to keep the pace with refining capacity to avoid costly imports of refined products. Presently, there are 17 refineries of which 7 are owned by IOC. Some of the new projects are Bharat Oman Refinery with 6 MMTPA capacity in MP, IOC's east coast refinery in TN with a capacity of 9.0 MMTPA, HPCL's in Punjab and Essar (10.0 MMTPA) in Gujarat.

Product Pipelines

With the enormous growth, transportation of petroleum products from ports, refineries to retail outlets has to grow to meet the growing demand. India is a vast country and it required efficient pipelines to transport oil from refineries to ports to interior locations of the country. Cross country pipelines from Iran, Myanmar and Bangladesh are also explored. HBJ Pipline belonging to GAIL is the longest trunk route pipeline and its capacity is enhanced from 18.20 MMSCMD to 33.40 MMSCMD at a project cost of Rs. 24 billion.

Overview of Indian Oil & Gas Sector

India is the fourth largest oil consumer in the Asia Pacific region after Japan, China and South Korea. It is growing at 7% a year and is currently estimated at US $ 90 billion.
India is endowed with 26 sedimentary basins and most of them are under intensive /extensive exploration. After the slew of policies announced from 1998, private sectors /foreign players are allowed and encouraged to bring new technology to exploit the resources. Apart from domestic resources, India has also put a strategy in place to ensure energy security by venturing overseas with its public sector arm OVL in oilfields of Sudan, Sakhalin, Myanmar, Vietnam, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Angola.

Introduction

As a promoter of IndScan Reports, a magazine of new projects and tenders, I have come across several market research activity, feasibility studies over the past decade. I am sharing here my views and interesting titbits of info. Through these articles, I like to track down the growth of oil & natural gas sector and chronicle them for years to come.

This blog will carry oil & natural gas sector articles and also news items pertains to this industry. Overall, an attempt has been made here to present an eagle's eye view of Indian oil & natural gas sector.