The Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that the projects are expected to be completed by 2025

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Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri reveals the government’s plans for oil and gas projects in the region. (Credit: Press Information Bureau)

The Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry announced that the government has approved INR1 trillion ($13.54bn) worth of oil and gas projects in the country’s northeastern region.

According to the petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, the projects are expected to be completed by 2025.

Puri made the announcement during a conference on oil and gas opportunities in the northeastern region of India.

The Minister said that the exploration acreage in the region will be increased by two times from the existing 30,000km2 to 60,00km2 by 2025.

Over the three years, nearly 20,000km were awarded under Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP), said the Minister.

The government’s approval covers INR270bn ($3.66bn) for an upstream project, INR300bn ($4.06bn) for the Numaligarh refinery, INR100bn ($1.35bn) for Indradhanush Gas Grid project, and INR330bn ($4.47bn) under the city gas distribution (CGD) programme, and other projects.

The Indian government plans to bring in a two-fold increase in oil and gas production in the country from current 9 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent (MMTOE) to 18MMTOE by 2025.

Puri also revealed plans to implement the North East Gas Grid (NEGG) for providing access of natural gas to end-user in the north-eastern region.

The Minister said that the region has a massive hydrocarbon potential, which is waiting to be exploited. Of the estimated 7,600 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent (MMtoe) of resources contained in the North-East, only 2,000MMtoe has been discovered so far, said the Minister.

The Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry stated: “With concerted efforts by industry and governments, oil production is expected to increase by 67% from 4.11 million metric tonnes (MMt) in 2020-21 to 6.85MMt in next 4 years.

“Gas production is forecasted to more than double from 5.05 billion cubic meters of natural gas (BCM) in 2020-21 to 10.87BCM in next 4 years.”

Recently, India’s state-owned energy firm ONGC had started production from the deep-water U1B well in KG-DWN-98/2 Block’s Cluster-II.