Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas looking to hire consultants to provide business vision, restructuring plan

New Delhi: With the global energy landscape muddled by various alternatives to fossil fuels, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas plans to hire consultants to provide a business vision and a restructuring plan to keep itself and its various public sector undertakings relevant in the continuously changing energy world.

“The objectives of the project are towards policy transformation and capacity building,” says its proposal seeking budgetary funding of Rs 75 crores to pay the consultants. The proposal for hiring consultants was mooted to the Delegated Investment Board end-February. They would be hired for providing guidance for three years starting fiscal 2024-25.

“Major interventions/components include energy sector landscape assessment (Energy Security, Energy Transition, Emerging Alternatives, New Energy etc.), future projections, a gas economy strategy, setting the business vision for the future Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas,” it says.

The key targets of the study would be:

(1) Strengthening the ministry’s delivery capability across its mandate through global benchmarking, process re-engineering, knowledge management and consolidated monitoring.

(2) Studying the trends, outlook and fiscal regime applicable to oil and gas industry in major oil and gas producing countries. Studying the framework adopted by these countries to promote indigenous production of supply chain and ancillary industries.

(3) Complete appraisal and exploration of all sedimentary basins and enhancing oil and gas production of the country at a faster pace along with Integrated Offshore Energy Development.

(4) Increasing the role of biofuels in the Indian energy basket to reduce import dependence.

(5) Emphasizing decarbonization to help India achieve its net zero targets.

(6) Preparing a gas economy strategy of India.

(7) Assessing and analysing the nationwide financial incentives and tax structures to prepare an incentive framework for promoting “Make in India” initiative.

(8) Analysing the current decommissioning, site restoration and disaster management system.

(9) Developing a monitoring and evaluation structure for the Upstream, Midstream and Downstream sectors of the exploration and production business.

“The overall objective,” it says, “is to assess the changing landscape in the energy domain, conceptualize and drive associated strategic initiatives, provide execution and monitoring support to realise the outcomes and improve the capabilities and effectiveness of organisational structures, governance models and management systems considering the present responsibilities as well as the emerging opportunities for the ministry.”