KOCHI, Nov 23:
India needs to focus its exploratory activities in the difficult and relatively less explored areas hiterto known to be ‘uneconomical’ and technically ‘unviable’, Union Petroleum and Natural Gas minister Veerappa Moily said here today.
“The need of the hour is to focus exploratory activities in the difficult and relatively less explored areas like Mesozoics sitting beneath the Trap and frontier areas which were hitherto known to be uneconomical and technically unviable”, he said.
He was delivering the inaugural address at the 10th Biennial International conference and Exposition organised by the Society of Petroleum Geophysicists (SPG).
Moily said the Planning Commission has estimated that energy supply has to grow at 6.5 per cent per year in the 12th plan period to achieve a GDP growth of nine per cent.
Since hydrocarbons constitute the lion’s share in the energy basket, challenges before petroleum scientists and engineers is immense in terms of bridging the demand-supply gap, he said.
“We have sustained a constant economic growth, but for all our technological advances, we are still an energy deficient nation’, Moily said.
The Minister said the only way India can progress in today’s world of diminishing resources and energy politics was by changing its outlook towards energy generation.
World energy demand was expected to expand by around 45 per cent between now and 2030; an average rate of increase of 1.6 per cent per year, most of which would comprise of fossil energy.
Due to its low carbon footprint, natural gas is likely to emerge as the fastest-growing fossil fuel to replace coal, oil and nuclear in many markets and play the bridge fuel in the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, he said.
Moily noted that India is undergoing major economic and industrial reforms to integrate its economy with the global economy. With increasing urbanisation, area of activities for exploration was getting reduced. Hence, there was need to be ‘absolutely precise’ in deciding exploration targets, he said.
With the Indian Shale Gas and oil policy approved in the recent past and with dynamism of innovation and implementation of new technologies and out-of-box ideas, the Indian Petroleum industries in general and geoscientists in particular thus shoulder a greater responsibility in the foreseeable future.
About 1000 participants from India and abroad are attending the conference, the theme of which is ‘Changing Landscape in Geophysical Innovations.’
ONGC Chairman and Managing Director Sudhir Vasudeva said the country’s flagship hydrocarbon company has thrown its full weight behind government’s call for a ‘second Independence movement’.
This is through energy independence by chalking out a six pronged strategy to bolster the exploration capacity of the country.
This, he said, is expected to go a long way in enhancing India’s fossil fuel output and production capacity in the medium-to-long-term future.
“We have prioritised suitable actions for exploitation of unconventional and alternative sources of energy’, he said adding ‘six priority plays has been identified for exploration – conventional, HP/HT/Tight Reservoirs, basement, deep water, shale gas and CBM’.
ONGC struck the first find of shale gas in the country at the commercial location of JMSGA in Jambusar in Gujarat on Oct 27. This comes close on the heels of the Government unveiling its shale gas policy.
The new strategy to shore up oil and gas production has become an imperative since the energy requirement in the country is poised to go through the roof, making India the third largest energy consumer by 2020.
Vasudeva said 249 blocks awarded till date through nine NELP rounds has so far not yielded much fruit since “there has not been many large discoveries commensurate with exploration efforts undertaken. It is felt in some quarters that the policy environment or the terms and conditions have not been able to attract many global oil players”.
On the other hand, most discoveries are in deep or ultra deep waters, where the presence or participation of IOCs (International Oil Companies) in exploring and developing Indian basins is highly sought after as our indigenous technology is not matured enough to exploit these logistically as well as geologically challenging basins, he said.
“Two issues are clamouring for attention: ‘one, above the ground – policy, price and infrastructure; two, below the ground – geology, and geophysics”, he said, adding while issues pertaining to the policy are adequately and expeditiously being addressed, it was the duty of petroleum scientists and engineers to address the second issue.
N K Verma, director (exploration) ONGC and patron SPG India, S K Das, President SPG India, Philip Ringrose, Vice President EAGE, Netherlands, and N S Dangwal, Secretary SPG India, also addressed the gathering. (PTI)
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