Oil India Limited (OIL) has secured an extension for petroleum licenses for 10 out of 16 independently held blocks in Assam and AP. Through these blocks (some of which it had to surrender for lack of potential), OIL held a total area of over 5,000 sq km.
OIL produced 3.6 million T of crude oil in 2009-10, about 3% more than the previous year. The company held hydrocarbon reserves of about 9.7 million T in 2009. Not a lot, considering the country uses about 120 MT of crude every year.
I think it is worth repeating. While we seem to be doing reasonably well in natural gas, with over 80% of total consumption produced in the country (though future might not be as kind, given natural gas consumption is expected to double in the next 4-5 years), on the oil front, we are going to have this huge demand – production gap for the foreseeable future. (Some bright spots are kG D6 and Cairn’s spots in Rajasthan, together these could potentially add close to 1 million barrels per day…that would be fantastic, because the country currently consumes about 3 million barrels per days and imports 2 million of those)
All the more reason the government should look at what else could be done to ramp up the biodiesel / bioethanol sector…
