By News On Air Mar 12, 2025
The Parliament has passed the Oilfields (Regulation and Development) Amendment Bill, 2024 with the Lok Sabha approving it today. The Bill seeks to amend the Oilfields (Regulation and Development) Act, 1948. It expands the definition of Mineral oils, which include naturally occurring hydrocarbon, coal bed methane, and shale gas. The legislation clarifies that coal, and lignite or helium will not be included in mineral oils.
Replying to a debate on the Bill, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said, India’s long-term strategy for energy security revolves around the trilemma of affordability, availability and sustainability and the country has navigated all three very successfully. He informed India at present imports from 40 countries.
Mr Puri said, India does not distinguish between the sources of supply provided the supplying countries are able to deliver at India’s port of importation at a reasonable price. He said, there is no shortage of supply and the world is experiencing increased supply from the Western Hemisphere.
The Minister said that there has been increased supply from Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, Canada and USA. He said, as large consumers like India can leverage the market consumption card to diversify and buy from cheaper sources. Mr Puri expressed confidence that India will be able to navigate the trilemma with the same success in the future.
Speaking on the Bill, Manish Tiwari of Congress said, the country’s production of crude and natural gas was 37.46 million metric tonnes and it imported 189.43 million metric tonnes of crude oil in the year 2014-15.
Mr. Tiwari said, crude oil production declined to 29.4 million metric tonnes and crude oil imports rose to 243.3 million metric tonnes in 2023-24. He said, the country imported over 87 percent of crude oil and natural gas in 2023-24. He questioned the government’s efforts of bringing down import dependency on natural gas.
Participating in the debate, Pratima Mondal of TMC sought response from the Minister on efforts taken by the Government to make India self-reliant in energy.
Ramshankar Rajbhar of Samajwadi Party expressed his concerns saying increasing fuel prices are troubling the people.
E T Mohammed Bashir of IUML, Jagdambika Pal of BJP, Ghumma Thanuja Rani of YSRCP, Ravindra Waikar of Shiv Sena, Kaushlendra Kumar of JD(U), Krishna Prasad Tenneti of TDP, DM Kathir Anand of DMK participated in the discussion among others.