Petrotech 2019 Inaugurated by PM Modi

The Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the 13th International Oil and Gas Conference – PETROTECH-2019 in Greater Noida on 11^th February 2019. In his speech he stressed for the need to have a responsible pricing of Oil and Gas so that the interests of both the consumers and producers are in equilibrium. Special incentives will be given for natural gas discoveries in difficult and unviable areas to PSUs to help raise India’s natural gas production. The aim is to unlock output in a dozen fields of ONGC and OIL.

What is Petrotech?

The PETROTECH series of International Oil and Gas Conference is a biennial platform where experts of oil and gas industry to exchange views and share knowledge and experiences. Petrotech-2019 is the 13^th edition. The event’s aim is to explore areas of growth in petroleum technology, exploration, drilling, production and processing, refining, pipeline transportation, petrochemicals, natural gas, LNG, petroleum trade, economics, legal and human resource development, marketing.

Excerpts of PM Modi’s Speech

• Government has been able to provide electricity to all rural parts of India
• Saubhagya scheme will provide 100% electrification in 2019
• The World Bank Ease of Getting Electricity ranking of India has improved from 111 in 2014 to 29 in 2018
• The Ujjwala scheme provided LPG connections to over 64 million connections in just 3 years and a ‘Blue Flame Revolution’ is underway.
• Clean transportation will get a boost as India will upgrade to BS-VI directly from the current BS-IV grade fuel by 2020
• Global companies like Saudi Aramco, ADNOC, ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP are increasing investments in India
• With the completion of 10^th City Gas Distribution round, 70% of Indian population will have access to piped cooking gas.

Comment

India produces about 90 million standard cubic meters per day (mmscmd) of natural gas per day. There is a plan to double the output by 2022. This will not only reduce dependence on imports and replace some of the polluting liquid fuels to cut emissions. All these will be possible with more and more of these sort of programmes. The special incentives to ONGC and OIL will help them to unlock a dozen discoveries; they are all unviable due to the current government mandated gas price. This will help both the producers and the consumers.