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The government is doing its bit to reduce dependence on crude oil imports, Rameshwar Teli, the Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister said Wednesday in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha. He added that the Ministry is working in collaboration with the various central government ministries to achieve the goal to cut down oil imports.
“The five-pronged strategy comprises promoting energy efficiency and conservation measures, giving thrust on demand substitution, promoting biofuels and other alternative fuels or renewables, increasing domestic production of oil, gas and refinery process improvements,” Teli said.
The government has taken several steps to increase exploration and production of oil and gas in the country, including policy for relaxations, extensions and clarifications under production sharing contract regime for early monetisation of hydrocarbon discoveries, discovered small field policy among others, he said.
Meanwhile, the government is also promoting usage of environment friendly transportation fuel i.e. CNG by expanding coverage of city gas distribution networks in the country. In addition, the government has also taken a number of other initiatives to encourage the use of alternative fuels like ethanol and bo-diesel etc.
Besides this, the minister said that the oil marketing companies have a system of monitoring and surveillance at retail outlets and checking of adulteration is a continuous process. He informed that during the last three years, OMCs have terminated 19 retail outlets in established cases of adulteration.
The minister also informed that, as on July 22, the supply of Compressed Bio Gas (CBG) commenced from 13 CBG plants under Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) initiative.
“So far Oil and Gas Marketing Companies participating in SATAT have procured about 1957 ton CBG from entrepreneurs. Under SATAT initiative Oil and Gas Marketing companies are continuing to invite Expression of Interest from potential entrepreneurs for production and supply of CBG,” he said.
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