Auction of 56 oil and gas blocks on revamped terms likely
India will offer at least 56 oil and gas blocks for bidding under completely revamped terms, oil secretary Vivek Rae said. “We will profile 56 blocks at the Petrotech conference next week. But notice inviting tender (or bids) will come out some time next month,” he said on Monday. The 10th round of auction under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP-X) will require bidders to quote the amount of oil or gas output they are willing to offer to the government from the first day of production, he said.
RIL may double natural gas output if prices increase: Report
Reliance Industries may more than double natural gas production to 50 million standard cubic metres per day by 2018 if gas prices are increased from April, Bernstein Research said. The projected output will come from satellite fields in the eastern offshore KG-D6 block and North East Coast block NEC-25, off the West Bengal coast. “Despite several years of delay, we expect India to announce a radical reform of natural gas prices starting in 2014,” Bernstein said.
Govt set to permit FDI in high speed trains, other projects
The government is likely to allow foreign direct investment in high speed trains and other projects, including development of rail lines between project sites and existing network. “The commerce and industry ministry has sent the cabinet note on the matter and a decision is likely to be taken this month,” a government official said. According to the DIPP proposal, foreign investment would also be allowed in “sub-urban corridor, high speed train systems and dedicated freight line projects implemented in the PPP mode. DIPP has also suggested widening the definition of ‘infrastructure’ by including railway line and railway sidings.
Power ministry to float cabinet note on ‘carriage and content’
The ministry of power will float a cabinet note, within a month, on the proposal of disintegrating power supply and distribution network for providing electricity to consumers. This proposal–carriage and content– has been in the works for the past one year and may fructify by the end of the current financial year (2013-14). “The deliberations on the carriage and content model are on and by this month-end we will be ready with the note,” a power ministry official said.
Co-ordination panel
set up to speed up coal projects
Amid many coal mining activities facing regulatory hurdles, the government has set up a co-ordination panel of central and state-level officials under coal secretary K Srivastava to speed up clearances for coal projects. The constitution of the committee comes at a time when Coal India is awaiting environment and forestry clearances for its 241 projects. The committee shall “act as the coordinating agency for monitoring and expediting environment and forests for expediting FCA (Forest Conservation Act) clearances,” a coal ministry document said.
Coal India misses
Apr-Dec output target by 15 million tonne
Coal India Ltd has recorded an output of 319.19 million tonne for the April-December period, missing the target by 4.5%. CIL had set a production target of 334.44 mt for the nine-month period.
