India is offering global investment opportunities worth $100 billion in the energy sector to be met by 2030, the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, has said.

Puri said the government aims to increase the acreage under oil and gas exploration to one million sq. km. by 2030.

“Only 10 per cent of India’s sedimentary basin area is under exploration today. After the award of blocks under the forthcoming Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) rounds, this will increase to 16 percent by the end of this year,” the Minister said.

He was speaking after the conclusion of “Urja Varta 2024,” a two-day conclave organised by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH).

The conclave brought together 400 industry experts, service providers, consultants, and academia members from both traditional and non-traditional energy sectors all over the world.

Puri announced the formation of a Joint Working Group comprising representatives from private sector exploration and production enterprises, the national oil companies, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and the DGH to address industry concerns and improve the ease of doing business in the sector.

“We have already simplified and reduced 37 approval processes into 18. Nine of these processes are now eligible for self-certification. However, we recognize the need to push these reforms further,” the Minister added.

He said India had already reduced the “no-go” areas in India’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) by almost 99 per cent.

India wants to strengthen its energy ties with Russia and could seek deals with Rosneft and other leading Russian oil firms as part of a broader push to boost bilateral trade, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra told last week.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin have set a target of increasing bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030 from about $65 billion at present, Kwatra told a news conference after the two leaders met in Moscow.

“The two leaders when they spoke of cooperation in the (energy) sector, they did focus on how exactly to strengthen that partnership,” Kwatra said.

“(And) in the similar vein, how exactly India in particular through the government-to-government route could also build partnerships with Rosneft and other energy entities,” he added.

India has emerged as the biggest buyer of Russian seaborne oil sold at a discount as Western entities shun purchases due to a raft of sanctions imposed on Russian over its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Russia is the top oil supplier to India, the world’s third biggest oil importer and consumer.

After Putin and Modi’s meeting, the two countries in a joint statement outlined nine key areas of cooperation for the $100-billion trade target.

Agencies