India Wants to Develop Hydrocarbon Resources in Qatar
India has expressed interest in developing hydrocarbon resources in Qatar.
The topic of joint exploration of new oil and gas fields in Qatar was discussed during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Doha on Sunday. Modi met with Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.
“The Indian side highlighted the interest of its energy companies to pursue opportunities of mutual interest in Qatar, with Qatar Petroleum and other companies, in order to jointly explore new fields as well development of discovered oil and gas assets and exploit the existing resources of natural gas and crude oil in Qatar,” a joint statement by India and Qatar stated.
Qatar is the biggest supplier of LNG to India. Petronet LNG has a long term deal with RasGas to import 7.5 mt per year.
New Delhi also invited Qatar to invest in India’s exploration & production sector by bidding for the exploration blocks in India under the new Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) and Discovered Small Fields Policy.
Late last month, India’s oil ministry invited bids for small oil and gas fields under the Discovered Small Field Policy. The ministry officially launched the bidding process on May 25, 2016 in New Delhi. Under the Discovered Small Field Policy, the government is offering 67 discovered small oil and gas fields clubbed into 46 contract areas spread over nine sedimentary basins in onland, shallow water and deep water areas for bidding which have known hydrocarbon discoveries.
These fields have been discovered by India’s national oil companies and are now being offered under exclusive policy which is based on easy to administer revenue sharing contract model. The contract areas contain more than 85MMT of in-place volume of reserves, the ministry said.
The government believes the new policy regime will mark a generational shift and modernization of the oil and gas exploration policy. It is expected to stimulate new exploration activity for oil, gas and other hydrocarbons and eventually reduce import dependence.
India is among the largest consumers of energy and has been overwhelmingly reliant on imports to meet local demand as domestic output has been sliding in recent years. Domestic gas production witnessed a decline of 17 percent in two years from 40.66 bcm in 2012-13, it fell to 33.65 bcm in 2014-15.