India's largest coal handling agency - Mjunction

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Feature Nelp-ix: bidding to close on March 18 Coal Insights Bureau After tasting limited success in the last eight editions, the government is going whole hog to draw foreign investors to the ninth round of auction under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP). Announced on October 15, NELP-IX will be closed for bidding on March 18. This is expected to be the last round of NELP, which will then graduate to a new, more flexible and investor friendly Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) from 2011. Under NELP-IX, the government has offered 34 areas, including 19 new and 15 relinquished blocks. This number is much less as compared to the last three bidding rounds and covers 88,807 sq km of area. The blocks include eight deepwater blocks, seven shallow water blocks and 19 onland blocks. As it is likely to be the last round of NELP, the government is trying to put extra effort to draw the attention of overseas oil exploration companies, many of which were conspicuous by their absence in the previous rounds. Limited success so far The first round of NELP was launched in 1999. Since then, the government has offered 326 oil and gas blocks and awarded 235 under eight rounds of bidding. Between 2000 and 2010, total exploration coverage of Indian sedimentary basin has been increased to about 58 percent from 11 percent. So far, 87 oil and gas discoveries have been made in 26 blocks and accretion of in-place hydrocarbon reserves of over 640 million tons of oil equivalent has taken place. The recent major findings were Reliance Industries’ Dhirubhai 1 and 3 gas finds in the D6 block in Krishna Godavari basin off the east coast and Cairn Energy’s oil find in Rajasthan. Reliance’s block is currently producing around 60 million standard cubic meters of gas per day. This has increased the domestic gas production by about 72 percent over that of 2008-09. In terms of investments, the NELP rounds have secured around $14 billion, which looks modest given the huge investment requirement of this industry. The last round of NELP-VIII had drawn investment commitment of $1.1 billion. Oil minister Murli Deora expects an improved response from foreign coil companies this year and said he has held talks with several foreign oil firms regarding their possible participation in auction this time around. A change in strategy In order to attract the global majors in oil exploration, the oil ministry has put thrust on marketing India’s potential this year. For the first time, the ministry has held a pre-NELP launch meeting in London on October 8, about a week before the formal launch on October 15, to seek the views of potential investors. The meeting, according to oil ministry sources, was attended by 48 companies. “We changed our (marketing) strategy this time….for the first time we had a pre-NELP launch meeting in London to incorporate views of investors. The response was good,” the minister said. Deora had also held meetings with the top executives of ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP and Shell in the past few months and found the response “positive’. Additionally, the ministry planned to increase the exposure of NELP road shows to foreign investors. Normally the road shows are held in Bombay, London, Houston, Calgary and Singapore. This time it was planned to hold a road show in Moscow as well. Another major change in strategy has been at the policy level. The government has decided that energy explorers would get tax incentives based on their investments in NELP- IX and not a seven-year tax holiday on profits as given earlier. This tax incentive will be available for gas exploration as well. Graduating to OALP According to petroleum secretary S. Sundareshan, the NELP is expected to graduate to OALP next year. The government and the directorate general of hydrocarbons are building a National Data Repository to facilitate the shift from NELP to OALP, he said. OALP is expected to bring in more efficiency and flexibility in the process of awarding blocks. Under this policy, companies can choose any block for offer at any time without waiting for the regular rounds. Blocks can be awarded based on the best bid at any time of the year. Along with a shift to OALP, the government has also planned to bring some changes in oil exploration sector to help explore the oil and gas resources in a more efficient manner. These include the framing of a policy for exploration of shale gas in Indian Basins. The measures, ministry sources said, are aimed at achieving the objectives of India Hydrocarbon Vision 2025 which targets to bring all sedimentary basins across the country into active exploration by 2025. For Classified Advertisements, contact Sumit Jalan, +91 92310 65739 or sumit.jalan@mjunction.in COAL INSIGHTS 38 October 2010
Feature Forestry clearance delays may derail growth prospects Coal Insights Bureau At a time when India’ environment ministry is putting its best foot forward to stop mining of minerals from environmentally sensitive areas, the Ministry of Coal (MoC) is trying to explain that delays or scrapping of environmental clearances would “ultimately result in the country missing growth opportunities.” In fact, the coal ministry is reaching out to other ministries to put an end to the exercise of classifying coal fields into “go” and “no go” areas according to their forest cover and has recently circulated a Cabinet note with an argument that mining should be allowed across the country wherever there are proven coal reserves. The MoC is seeking support from power as well as steel ministries, which are facing more or less similar situation, in its endeavour to influence the MoEF release clearances on an urgent basis. The MoC note has painted a grim picture of slowing growth prospects and at the same time argued that “paying too much attention to environmental concerns would in effect lead to “curtailment of energy source”. Incidentally, Coal Insights has reported, quoting Coal India Ltd (CIL) chairman P.S. Bhattacharyya, in its September 2010 issue, that the company has urged the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to expedite the clearance for projects in “open forest’ areas within a period of 300 days. Bhattacharyya had hinted that MoEF is not even giving clearances for mining even in areas (open forest) where small bushes or shrubs are found. “Currently around 150 such projects are awaiting clearance from the environment ministry,” he said. “We will not seek clearance for mining in “no go areas”, but in case of “open forest” areas, clearances should be given within around 300 days. In return, we will give back real good forests, instead of bushes and shrubs through our afforestation drive,” CIL Chairman had said. He pointed out that over the past few years, CIL had COAL INSIGHTS 39 October 2010
Page 3 and 4: Chief Editor Rakesh Dubey, Tel: +91
Page 5 and 6: India’s largest coal handling age
Page 8: Cover Story INDUSTRIAL GROWTH INDIC
Page 12: Cover Story India, China lead globa
Page 16: Cover Story Beml plans to double tu
Page 20: Cover Story complete longwall minin
Page 23 and 24: coal market fundamentals Coking coa
Page 25 and 26: Feature Competitive bidding: Will i
Page 27 and 28: Feature allotment of captive coal b
Page 29 and 30: Feature Coal ministry puts illegal
Page 31 and 32: Feature Coke shortage may hamper st
Page 33 and 34: Feature How coke making evolved Tho
Page 35 and 36: Feature Cement makers to hike price
Page 37: Feature increased imports, which is
Page 41 and 42: Feature embarked on a massive affor
Page 43 and 44: Feature India misses Sept power gen
Page 45: government Coal ministry firm on pr
Page 49 and 50: INTERNATIONAL Forum seeks Canada-In
Page 51 and 52: INTERNATIONAL UAE 269,462 331,688 1
Page 53 and 54: INTERNATIONAL EIA raises 2010 US co
Page 55 and 56: Expert Speak Heat recovery chinese
Page 57 and 58: Expert Speak Refractory lining work
Page 59 and 60: Expert Speak and in a hard copy for
Page 61 and 62: CORPORATE We have already commissio
Page 63 and 64: CORPORATE Cil in top league after i
Page 65 and 66: CORPORATE Banks not tapped for capt
Page 67 and 68: Logistics down rates and increased
Page 69 and 70: Power sector update PROGRAMME AND P
Page 71 and 72: Power sector update CAPACITY ADDITI
Page 73 and 74: Power sector update Northern WESTER
Page 76: SnapShot Chile mine rescue - a marv
Page 80: Snap Shot It was finalised that the
Page 84: E-Auction data Month Details of e-A
Page 88 and 89:
All India coal data - August 2010 N
Page 90:
port DATA Major Ports Through Which
show all

India's largest coal handling agency - Mjunction

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?