Cabinet has approved private operations in 66 discovered fields

The Committee had submitted its report on January 29, while Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan approved it on February 5. It was put up before a Group of Ministers on February 13 which approved it the same day.

Going by the Cabinet approval, ONGC would have to bid out 64 fields and Oil India Ltd two fields to “new operators” without charging any past costs for their discovery or development efforts.

This, the statement said, was “likely to augment production by leveraging new technology, capital and management practices through private sector participation”. These fields — discovered by the two national oil companies in exploration basins that were given under nomination — are out of the 118 smaller fields that contribute 5 per cent of the country’s crude oil output of 35.68 million tonnes and natural gas production of 32.65 billion cubic metres.

The statement by the government said the Cabinet decision signalled “a paradigm shift in the core goal of the government, moving from revenue-maximisation to production-maximisation, with focus on exploration”. “This will incentivise increased investment and production,” it noted.

In Category I basins (where potential is established and production is taking place), the maximum revenue sharing has been capped at 50 per cent to ensure that revenue sharing does not disincentivise higher production.