The government has opened the oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) sector in a bid to increase domestic production and reduce import dependence. Since 2017, around $1.8 billion, or roughly ₹14,800 crore has been invested in gas exploration.

“As reported by operating companies, an investment of approximately $1.8 billion (provisional) has been made in exploration activities, in the last 5 years,” Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameswar Teli said in a written response to a query in Lok Sabha.

Under production sharing and revenue sharing contract regimes, hydrocarbon (oil and gas) exploration activities are carried out by operating companies, he added.

Consumption decreased

The Minister noted that India’s import dependency based on consumption for natural gas has decreased from 48.2 per cent in FY22 to 46.3 per cent in FY23 (April to October).

The government has taken various policy initiatives to increase domestic production of natural gas and adopted strategies for promotion of biofuels, including support for compressed Biogas, National Gas Grid for pipeline infrastructure and City Gas distribution (CGD) Networks. LNG regasification terminals are also being developed to ensure availability of gas to all demand centres, he added.

CGD network

After completion of 11 A CGD bidding round, 295 Geographical Areas (GAs) covering about 98 per cent of the population and 88% per cent of total geographical area of the country spread over around 630 districts in 28 states/UTs including all cities under these GAs, have been covered under the CGD network, the minister said in a reply to another query in Lok Sabha.

As of September 2022, 221 GAs have been operationalised for supply of CNG and 177 GAs have been operationalised for PNG supply to households.

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