Government is pushing public sector behemoth ONGC to involve private sector companies and service providers wherever possible to help raise oil and gas production, Petroleum Secretary Tarun Kapoor said Thursday.
Mr Kapoor's comments came days after the second-highest ranked official in his ministry asked Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to give away a 60 per cent stake plus operating control in India's largest oil and gas producing fields of Mumbai High and Bassein to foreign companies.
“ONGC has to explore more so that it can discover more oil and gas reserves and bring them quickly to production to raise domestic output. The government is very clear that ONGC has to do more,” he told reporters.
India is 85 per cent dependent on imports to meet its oil needs, and a way to cut the high import bill is to increase domestic production.
"Naturally, when they do more work, there are areas where they can get experts in the fields… such as in deepsea,” Mr Kapoor said.
Discoveries that the company hasn't been able to develop or areas that it hasn't been able to explore are some of the examples where ONGC can involve the private sector and foreign companies.
ONGC, he said, should identify areas where it can get private sector expertise and efficiencies.
These could range from technical collaboration to giving partially explored and undeveloped discoveries to private firms.
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