Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has granted approval for Rs 1 lakh crore worth oil and gas projects for North-East India, expected to be completed by 2025.
Special Bidding Round under Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) for NER with acreages is being carved out by the government and offered with additional incentives for attracting investments.
Doubling the exploration acreage in NER from the existing 30,000 sq km to 60,000 sq km by 2025 (approximately 20,000 sq km of area already awarded under OALP over last three years in NER). The plan is to double the oil and gas production from the current nine MTOE to 18 MTOE by 2025.
The Centre also plans to set up a dedicated service provider hub in NER to support the requirement of the oil and gas industry in collaboration with state governments. The implementation of the North-East Gas Grid (NEGG) to provide access of natural gas to end-users in North-Eastern region besides six geographical areas (GAs) comprising 18 districts in the state of Assam and Tripura are on offer under the 11th Round of CGD Bid Round for developing the city gas distribution (CGD) network.
The Digboi refinery in Assam will also be expanded. The issue of blending ethanol with petrol at the refinery level will also be explored.
There is a huge hydrocarbon potential waiting to be tapped; of the estimated 7,600 MTOE in the North-East, only 2,000 MTOE has been discovered so far.
With concerted efforts by the industry and governments, oil production is expected to increase by 67 percent from 4.11 million tonne in 2020-21 to 6.85 million tonne in the next four years. Gas production is forecasted to more than double from 5.05 BCM in 2020-21 to 10.87 BCM in the next four years.
