The petroleum minister comes up with a statement saying that the Ministry is continuously working towards the inclusion of petroleum in the goods and service tax framework as it is thought to provide benefit to the states in overall. Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that “This (the inclusion of petroleum in GST) will benefit the states also, When oil was at $40 a barrel, then the economic viability of the discovered small fields (DSF) was looked at. Now it is around $50 and the expectation is for it to remain in the $55-60 range in the near term.”
All these words were being spoken at an event organized to award the bidders who made through the process in the first round as for newly operational and discovered potential oil and gas fields. Adding that expected oil prices will continue to be in the range of USD 55 – USD 60 in the recent times. The DSF bid round was brought in general in May 2016 and the same was participated by around 134 e-bids for the total of 34 contract areas along with 47 companies in total which will be participating in both ways as single or consortium and out of which finally there were 31 contract areas who were awarded out of 22 companies.
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K.D. Tripathy, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas was also aware of the matter and mentioned that, “The whole process was completed in record time, We are hopeful of rich production from the fields, which will be a step towards meeting India’s ever-growing energy needs.”
As the ministry exposed that, the overall maximum production from the awarded fields are to be around 15000 barrels of oil every day and around 2 million metric standard cubic meters per day (mmscmd) in their productive lifespan. Talking about the revenue generation and royalties that would sum up to INR 46,600 crore in which the center would take its royalty as INR 5000 crore and states share will be of INR 2100 crore.
In other stance of petroleum sector to emerge with the online platform, the petroleum minister inaugurates two-way online portal to support and facilitate the contract management and the queries resolution developed the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons. Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on the occasion that, “The portal will do away with the need for knocking on the doors of government officials to find out the progress of various projects, That is the commitment of the portal.”
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The contracts part was ambiguous in which a total of 22 companies were being awarded the contracts in which 17 of them from the domestic private sector, one was a foreign private company and four public sector companies. And the petroleum minister also assured that the ministry is working upon remaining contract areas for the second round of bidding.
