Government Gets Profit of $7.05 Billion From Rajasthan Fields in 3 Fiscal Years

New Delhi: Cairn India has paid government $7.05 billion in profit petroleum from its Rajasthan oil fields in the last three fiscal years, accounting for 60 per cent of the profit petroleum government earned from private fields.

The government got $11.954 billion in profit petroleum from oil and gas fields operated by private firms like Cairn and Reliance Industries during 2011-12 to 2013-14, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

Of this, the maximum of $ 7.057 billion came from Cairn's Rajasthan oilfields. BG Group-operated Panna/Mukta and Tapti field gave $2.507 billion. Cairn's Ravva field gave $1.066 billion and its Cambay basin field CB-OS/2 an additional $316 million.

RIL's eastern offshore KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block gave the government $486 million, Pradhan said.

With KG-D6 output dropping, government's profit share too has dipped - from $251 million in 2011-12 to $153 million in 2012-13 and $82 million in 2013-14.

Government is entitled to a pre-fixed share of profit from the oil and gas fields. This profit petroleum rises after all cost incurred on the field are recovered.

"Accumulative profit petroleum of $11.95 billion has been realised by the government under the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) regime during 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14," he said.

Cairn's Rajasthan block, where the government's share of profit has been fixed at a ceiling of 50 per cent, gave the government a profit petroleum of $1.798 billion in 2011-12, $2.637 billion in 2012-13 and $2.622 billion in 2013-14.

Its Ravva oil and gas field gave the government a profit share of $440 million in 2011-12, $362 million in 2012-13 and $264 million in the following year, he said.

Pradhan said domestic natural gas production of 129 million standard cubic meters per day in 2014-15 will be way short of a demand of 405 mmscmd. The demand is projected to rise to 446 mmscmd next fiscal and to 473 mmscmd in 2016-17.

Against this, domestic gas output will increase in 139 mmscmd in 2015-16 and 175 mmscmd in 2016-17.

Similarly, crude oil production is projected to rise from 38.76 million tonnes in current fiscal to 42.54 million tonnes next year before dropping to 41.15 million tonnes in 2016-17.

Against this, oil demand is projected at 159.8 million tonnes in 2014-15, 177.7 million tonnes  in 2015-16 and 186.8 million tonnes in the following year, he added.