Falling oil, gas output a concern; gas trading hub soon: Pradhan

TIL Desk/Business/New Delhi/ India’s falling oil and gas production is a matter of concern which the government has sought to address by initiating various reforms in the sector, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Tuesday. Addressing the global advisory firm KPMG’s “Enrich” energy summit here, Pradhan also said that aspart of India’s efforts to move to a cleaner gas-based economy, the government will soon set up a gas trading hub.

“Our dwindling domestic oil and gas production is a concern and the government has made major changes to address it,” he said.”The most transformative reform in the exploration and production sector is moving to a revenue sharing model and opening the entire sedimentary basin to investors through open acreage licensing.”

Official data last month showed the country’s crude oil production in October at 2.89 million tonnes, down 5 per cent as compared to the same month a year ago. India’s natural gas output in October at 2.80 billion cubic metres was also down 0.4 per cent in comparison to the production a year ago. Speaking of the future,the Minister said that the government would soon be setting up a gas trading hub and there are plans to invest around $300 billion in the oil and gas sector in the coming decade.