Over the past year, the oil and gas sector has witnessed substantial progress across segments. Key developments include major discoveries, midstream infrastructure project implementation, and policies and agreements promoting biogas and hydrogen blending in the city gas distribution (CGD) segment.
Indian Infrastructure looks at some of the key sector highlights over the past year…
Policy reforms
In June 2024, the central government approved the scheme guidelines for the Development of Pipeline Infrastructure for injecting compressed biogas (CBG) into CGD networks, with a financial outlay of Rs 9.94 billion for 2024-25 to 2025-26.
The Gujarat government approved the public-private partnership model for establishing and developing compressed natural gas (CNG) stations. It also sanctioned a full dealer-owned dealer-operated CNG scheme to increase the coverage of CNG stations across the state alongside increasing the accessibility of CNG.
Exploration and production
Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) discovered two natural gas reserves in MN-DWHP-2018/1 block within the Mahanadi basin in the Bay of Bengal. Recently, in July 2024, it commenced coal bed methane production at the Bokaro Block in Jharkhand.
The central government flagged off a crude oil tanker, Swarna Sindhu, from the Cluster II fields of the KG-DWN-98/2 (KG-D5) block. It also approved additional investment for development.
Auction update
In May 2024, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) invited bids for a special round of auction of a discovered small field (DSF). The contract areas include B-12C-2 DSF at MB/OSDSF/C37/2024 in the Mumbai offshore basin; B-15A-1 and B-15-2 DSF at MB/OSDSF/B15/2024 in the Mumbai offshore basin; and SR-ONCBM (Raniganj)-2024 in South Rewa Damodar basin.
Earlier, in January, the MoPNG invited bids for the exploration and development of 28 oil and gas blocks, including nine on-land, eight shallow water and 11 ultra-deep-water blocks, under the ninth round of the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) under the Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy.
Additionally, ONGC, Oil India Limited (OIL), Sun Petro Chemicals Private Limited, and a consortium of Reliance Industries Limited and BP Exploration won contracts for the exploration and development of 10 oil and gas blocks under OALP-VIII.
Key announced and completed projects
In March 2024, the centre laid the foundation stones for the expansion of the Digboi Refinery, expansion of the Guwahati Refinery and augmentation of the Betkutchi (Guwahati) Terminal Project. It also inaugurated the 718 km Barauni-Guwahati natural gas pipeline, part of the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga Project constructed at a cost of approximately Rs 39.92 billion.
During the same month, GAIL (India) Limited commissioned a small-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Vijaipur, Madhya Pradesh, entailing an investment of Rs 1.5 billion.
In April 2024, Petredec commissioned the Krishnapatnam port liquefied petroleum gas storage terminal.
In June 2024, ONGC and IOCL signed an MoU for setting up a small-scale LNG plant in Hatta, Madhya Pradesh.
CGD bidding
Five firms won licences for developing CGD networks in eight geographical areas (GAs) under Rounds 12 and 12A of CGD bidding. The successful bidders include the joint venture (JV) of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and OIL for the Arunachal Pradesh GA, Haryana City Gas for the Meghalaya GA, BPCL for the Jammu & Kashmir GA, Tripura Natural Gas Company Limited (TNGCL) for the Manipur GA, the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and OIL JV for the Nagaland GA, HPCL for the Sikkim GA, and BPCL for the Ladakh GA.
In addition, TNGCL won a licence for the Mizoram GA. The anticipated investment for the 12th bidding round is around Rs 410 billion.
Other key developments
Adani Total Gas Limited has launched a green hydrogen production and blending pilot project in Ahmedabad to deploy cutting-edge technologies for blending green hydrogen with natural gas for over 4,000 residential and commercial customers.
Indian Oil-Adani Gas Private Limited has signed a tripartite agreement with Reliance Bio Energy Limited and GAIL (India) Limited for CBG blending in the CGD network under the CBG-CGD Synchronisation Scheme.
Total Energies signed an agreement with IOCL for the supply of around 0.8 million tonnes per annum of LNG for a period of 10 years, starting from 2026.
OIL and its subsidiary, Numaligarh Refinery Limited, entered into a long-term contract for the transportation of additional petroleum products via OIL’s Numaligarh-Siliguri product pipeline.
Petronet LNG Limited has approved the development of the Dahej Petrochemical Plant Project, Gujarat, which includes a 750,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) propane dehydrogenation plant and a 500,000 tpa polypropylene plant at an estimated cost of Rs 206.85 billion.
