Comments
Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas M Veerappa Moily is confident of getting all regulatory approvals by February 15 for the tenth edition of oil and gas auction rounds.
Speaking to reporters here on Friday, the Minister said, “For the NELP X – Open Acreage Licensing Policy and revenue sharing model – we expect the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs’ approvals by February 15.”
Tenth edition The Ministry proposes to launch the tenth edition of oil and gas block auctions under the Uniform Licensing Policy regime, which will allow a contractor to bid for all sources of hydrocarbons – oil, gas, coal bed methane, or shale. Moily said his Ministry would like to ensure that all necessary clearances including environmental are in place before the blocks are auctioned.
Out of the 86 blocks shortlisted for auction in NELP X, 46 have received the requisite clearances.
On issues concerning the Reliance Industries-operated Krishna Godavari Basin D6 block, Moily said his Ministry would seek CCEA nod to allow RIL and its foreign partners, BP and Niko Resources, to conduct a drill stem test (a procedure to establish hydrocarbon discovery in acreage), as the stipulated time to conduct such a test is over. “The CCEA note would be circulated by January 31. The explorer has agreed for it,” Moily added.
The explorer and upstream regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons’ (DGH) views differ over three discoveries — D 29, D30 and D31 — in the KG basin. According to the regulator, RIL should relinquish these fields as it failed to conduct drill stem test.
LPG CAP Moily said the next meeting of the Union Cabinet would decide on increasing the cap on subsidised domestic cooking gas to 12 refills annually.
Increasing the subsidy to 12 refills would burden the Government with an additional subsidy of Rs 4,000 crore taking total subsidy bill for LPG to ₹50,000 crore. According to the Government, 97 per cent of population would be covered with 12 subsidised refills per year
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.