The Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shri RameswarTeli in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today informed that the production of crude oil till February 2022 has been 28.51 Million Metric Tonnes (MMT) against the target of 31.80MMT during current financial year. The decline in production of crude oil in recent years has been due to natural decline and increase in water cut in wells of matured fields.

Various steps have been taken to reduce import of Crude Oil. These inter alia include demand substitution by promoting usage of natural gas as fuel/feedstock across the country towards increasing the share of natural gas in economy and moving towards gas based economy, promotion of renewable and alternate fuels like ethanol, second generation ethanol, compressed bio gas and biodiesel, refinery process improvements, promoting energy efficiency and conservation, efforts for increasing production of oil and natural gas through various policies under Production Sharing Contract (PSC) regime, Discovered Small Field Policy, Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy, etc.

Government has also provided functional freedom to National Oil Companies and for wider private sector participation by streamlining approval processes including electronic single window mechanism. To give a major thrust to Ethanol Blending Programme, Government of India through Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) are establishing 2G Ethanol plants across the country, also for promoting the use of Compressed Bio Gas (CBG) as automotive fuel, Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) initiative has been launched under which oil Marketing Companies are inviting Expression of Interest (EoI) from potential entrepreneurs to produce CBG.

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