Reforms in Oil and Gas Exploration
• Government has approved Hydrocarbon and Exploration Licensing Policy (HELP) and same has been notified on 30th March 2016. This policy provides for a uniform licensing system to explore and produce all hydrocarbons such as oil, gas, coal bed methane, shale oil/gas, etc. under a single licensing framework Policy also provides many incentives such as reduced royalty rates for offshore blocks, marketing & pricing freedom and easy to administer revenue sharing model.
• Marketing and Pricing freedom for new gas production from Deepwater, Ultra Deepwater and High Pressure-High Temperature areas subject to certain conditions.
• Discovered Small Fields Policy- 67 oil & gas fields which have been held by ONGC and OIL for many years, but have not been exploited, has been approved for bidding under this policy. • Policy for grant of extension to the Production Sharing Contracts of 28 Small and medium sized discovered blocks.
• Policy Framework for relaxation, extensions and clarifications at the development and production stage under PSC regime for early monetization of hydrocarbon discoveries: Government approved this policy on 10.11.2014, and the same is being implemented. Under this policy, about 40 pending cases have been resolved.
• New Domestic Natural Gas price Guidelines, 2014: Under these guidelines, gas price has been linked to the market/ important hub prices.