A ‘Gas Economy Strategy’ and a ‘Comprehensive Restructuring Plan’ — the Petroleum Ministry is formulating these plans to reduce India’s import dependence in the oil and gas sector by 15 per cent by 2030, 50 per cent by 2040, and achieve “energy independence” by the year 2047.
The ministry has sought the help of a private consultant for the job for the next 15 months.
News18 has accessed government documents listing out the plan which will see the selected consultant study ‘mature gas markets’ like USA and Europe and competitive markets like Japan and South Korea.
The plan is to also “rapidly accelerate” oil and gas exploration as well as production, “switching to a gas-based economy” and the transition to alternate fuels.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) is also open to a “comprehensive restructuring plan” to become a “future-ready agile organisation,” the documents say, asking the consultant to embark on such an exercise.
The government note says India could account for 12 per cent of the world’s energy consumption by 2050. Currently, India has a large import dependence, with less than 15 per cent of oil demand met domestically.
The Consultant’s Job
The brief to the consultant hence is to “focus on all energy levers” for much faster exploration and production and scaling up refining and strategic storage, while progressing on the sustainability agenda.
The consultant is being asked to study how production enhancement and expedition of exploration and production can be done in non-producing blocks. The focus is on completing the appraisal and exploration of sedimentary basins and improving prospectively perception of Indian sedimentary basins globally.
“To maintain India’s net exporter position, India needs to undertake large-capital intensive refining capacity projects. India will also need to provide gas and naphtha supply towards helping double local petrochemical production capacity to 40.9 MMPTA by 2030, and thereby reduce petrochemical import dependence,” the document says.
It says India also needs to “double down” on alternative fuels to bridge the demand-supply gap.
The consultant will study the ‘energy sector landscape assessment’ through global trends and prepare a roadmap for the strategic role of bio-fuels in the Indian energy market to reduce import dependence.
Restructuring MoPNG
The consultant will also study the roles played by energy sector government ministries in major developed countries and emerging markets to understand their institutional structure and establish via benchmarking the best practices in such organisational structures and interfaces.
The agency will then examine the organisational structure of the MoPNG and the current operation model while suggesting reforms to enable ease of doing business. The idea is to “identify key gaps between what exists in India today and global best practices,” the document says.
A possible restructuring of MoPNG could be done after the exercise. The consultant has been asked to “envision possible future role to be played by MoPNG based on current and evolving responsibilities and recommend an operating model for the to-be organisation including designing the process maps and metrics…” the document mentions.
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