New Delhi: India on Thursday launched its biggest-ever auction of oil and gas blocks, expecting a $3-billion investment in exploration of 70 areas on offer for bidding.

The country, dependent on imports for 75 per cent of its requirements, also offered for bidding 10 areas for extraction of gas from below coal fields, known as coal bed methane (CBM).
Deep-sea blocks

Under the Petroleum Policy-2009, the government has allocated 50 percent job quota to the residents of each exploratory block for development and uplift of the area. According to official sources, employing the unskilled workers of the area, at local level both by the operator and its third party contractor has been decided.

Work on grassroots refinery at Paradip progressing

Special Correspondent

Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC), a Gujarat government- owned company, has made huge discovery of gas in the KG-21 well located on the western side of Deendayal West block at Krishna Godavari Basin off the Andhra Pradesh coast, official sources said.

Maulik Pathak / Ahmedabad April 02, 2009, 0:06 IST

Bids for a $3 bn project to clean oil spill left in Kuwait from the 1991 Gulf War.

Having decided to join the race for a $3-billion project to clean a huge oil spill in Kuwait from the 1991 Gulf War, ONGC

Mukesh AmbaniMukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL), which discovered the world

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has once again shut down crude oil production at its predominantly gas-rich KG-D6 block to hook up more wells that will raise the output to a peak of 40,000 barrels per day.

Reliance shut down production at the MA field on the midnight of March 22 for 45 days to connect more oils that will raise the output, a source said.

NEW DELHI: Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL), a unit of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, has been named as the buyer of Cairn India

NEW DELHI: With global economic slowdown and recession taking a toll on investments in the oil and gas industry the world over, India has decided to exercise caution and would now trim the offer of oil and blocks under NELP VIII likely to be launched by April.