Exploitation of reserves needed to meet rising energy demand: Moily

 The Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas M Veerappa Moily on Tuesday said that technology and capital intensive interventions have the potential to give new lease of life to the matured fields.

 'India has a huge resource base but a huge volume of these reserves has not been exploited yet. India has total prognosticated resource of 205 billion barrels of O+OEG, out of which only 68 billion barrels has been established as in-place volume.’

‘Out of 26 basins, exploration is yet to be initiated in 11 basins' said Moily while  inaugurating third edition of IEF NOC-IOC forum’, he added

Taking into account, the growing needs of energy security in the country. He further said that India, the second fastest growing economy of the world, is also striving hard. With 17% of the  world population, India has just 0.35% of oil reserves & 0.6% of natural gas reserves but witnessing a huge demand of energy resources owing to its growth projections.

‘Look at the huge exploration potential for hydrocarbons that exists in India. Out of total 3.14 million sq. km sedimentary area, only 22 % have been well explored and exploration been initiated in 44% of the balance area. But we still have 12% unexplored and 22% poorly explored  areas.’

‘Even after 9 rounds of New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP, about 80% area yet to be explored extensively. In terms of drilling intensity too, India has a very low figure. India has huge resource base but a huge volume of these reserves has not been exploited yet,’ Moily  opined.