MAKING INDIA ENERGY SECURE
India, today, is one of the fastest growing G–20 economies and among the largest and growing consumers of energy in the world. It is critical, therefore, for the country to develop its world-class asset base, in a sustainable yet expeditious manner, and support its citizens’ need for energy in an affordable manner.
The Government of India is deeply committed towards driving the country to become energy independent and reduce India’s energy imports by 50% by 2030. The Government has taken several steps to promote this vision further through encouraging foreign investment and global participation, in both the renewable and non–renewable energy sector in India. The Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP), was one such step taken by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to encourage oil and gas upstream companies to bid for prospective oil and gas blocks, without waiting for the announcement of bidding. OALP’s main purpose is to act as a faster vehicle of awarding blocks in order to bring more acreage under exploration.
In OALP Round – 1 auction, where 55 blocks were put up for bidding Cairn was the only company to bid for all 55 blocks. In a strong acknowledgment of Cairn’s track record and performance in aggressively driving enhanced oil production for the country, the company was awarded 41 out of the 55 blocks.
These 41 blocks provide Cairn a rich and diversified exploration portfolio, and expand our national footprint to 48 offshore and onshore blocks. The company plans to replicate its continued success and expedite production from these newly acquired blocks to 500 kboepd. These blocks will enable us to expand our resource base by four times to 5.5 bboe across both conventional and unconventional plays, in some of the richest oil and gas basins in India.
