Private Indian Firms Prioritizing Shale Exploration

Indian private energy firms such as Reliance Industries, Cairn India and Essar Oil have put shale oil and gas exploration and marketing on their priority list, according to the Economic Times.

This comes as Indian government is giving final touches to the shale policy to kick-start the hunt for other sources of natural gas in the energy-hungry country, the financial daily said.

According to Economic Times, Relinace may ship a portion of the shale gas produced in its acreages in the US to India.

Cairn says it has seen a significant potential for shale oil and gas in the Barmer block which is home to the country's largest onland oil block and is lobbying with the government to allow private oil firms to explore shale potential in their existing oil and gas acreages, the newspaper added.

"We have the option to import a portion of the gas produced in our US shale acreages to India as there is a huge market potential. We could in fact pool this gas with the gas that BP will be importing from the Freeport LNG terminal in the US and bring it to India," PMS Prasad, executive director, RIL told Economic Times.