Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri today said, the government intends to increase country’s exploration acreage to one million square kilometre by 2030 under exploration and production activities.
He said, the open acreage licensing policy has increased the exploration and production growth. The Union Minister was addressing a gathering during an event – ‘Urja Varta’ organised by Directorate General of Hydrocarbon at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi today. He added that the government is spending heavily on promoting data driven exploration. Mr Puri said, an investment of 7 thousand 500 crore rupees is being done on the acquisition of new seismic data including that of area of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) for Hydrocarbon Exploration and Development.
The Petroleum Minister said, currently only 10 per cent of Indian Sedimentary Basin Area is under active exploration. He said, however, with the initiatives of Government, more areas will come under exploration and it is estimated that after award of blocks under forthcoming bidding rounds, about 16 per cent area will come under exploration by end of year 2024.
