GUWAHATI, Nov 28 ? The Oil India Limited and the Assam Gas Company are bringing in a team of experts from abroad for exploration of natural gas beneath the bed of Brahmaputra. This was disclosed by the Union Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyer, here today.
Addressing a Press conference here today, the Minister said, ? what petroleum was for the 20th century, gas will be the same during the 21st century.? He said that the OIL made a major breakthrough with the recovery of two gas fields in upper Assam. He revealed that from nine million standard cubic metres per day in 1980s, the gas production in the country has gone up to 90 million standard cubic metres per day.
However, of the total production, an about 16 million standard cubic metre is consumed in the process of pulling it out. He also disclosed that the demand for gas in the country at present is 120 million standard cubic metres per day, which is likely to go up to 400 million standard cubic metres per day by the year 2020.
The Petroleum Minister admitted that despite the increase in gas production, the country would have to depend on exports to meet the demand and the cheapest way would be to bring the same through pipelines. In this context, he referred to the pipeline project from Iran through Pakistan and hoped that the project would come through soon. He also said that talks are on to bring in gas from Myanmar by a pipeline through Bangladesh.
Replying to a question on the possibility of merger of public sector oil companies, Aiyer said that the Petroleum Ministry has prepared eight options for having a strong and effective public sector in oil economy which can hold its own in the global and domestic market and one of the options envisages merger of the companies.
He revealed that the Government has formed an advisory committee headed by Dr B Krishnamurthy to evaluate the options and to examine other options. He said that the Government would again review the recommendations of the committee before taking the final decision in this regard.
Commenting on flaring up of natural gas in the oil fields of Assam, the Minister said that the OIL and ONGC have taken steps to reduce flaring up of natural gas. However, at the same time, he admitted that some amount of gas would have to be flared up for technical reasons and ?best efforts are on to minimise the same.?
On the crude oil production scene in the country, the Minister said that the country is facing some geological obstacles in the way of increasing production of crude oil. He revealed that 97 per cent of the crude production in the country is from the deposits, which are 60 million years old, while, in the rest of the world, 97 percent of the crude is extracted from deposits, which are 300 million years old.
He said that, most of the deeper deposits in the country are overlaid with volcanic materials and India would have to invent technology to reach the deeper reserves. He also admitted that the prospects of finding crude oil in off shore fields is much better. He also stressed the need to encourage the oil companies including the ONGC to go for risky scientific ventures.
Replying to a question on the controversy regarding handing over of the Amguri oil field to a private company, the Minister said, ? we are not privatising the field as alleged by certain sections.? He said that the ONGC termed the field as a marginal one and according to the corporation, the field is not economically viable.
But a Canada based company, Canoro , has come forward to invest money in the field by taking all the risk and there is no harm to allow the company to explore the field. The Petroleum Minister also announced that making CNG available in Guwahati is among the priority list of his Ministry. The Assam Gas Company is already planning a pipeline to Guwahati and the feasibility of bringing imported LNG to Guwahati is also being explored.