The Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) approved 25 blocks for continued exploration of oil and gas in its latest meeting. These blocks involve a total of over $4.6 billion of investment.
Of this, $2.71 billion of investment has already been made and further investment to the extent of $1.9 billion will be made in the exploration activities in the next 3-5 years.
While the panel fully approved exploration in nine blocks, it imposed some conditions for exploration in 16 blocks.
It may be recalled that these are part of the 31 exploration and production (E&P) blocks where work had been stopped on account of security restrictions imposed by Defence Ministry.
CCI has been active in the last few months in approving operation in the oil and gas blocks. At its meeting held on March 20, the panel, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, cleared five out of eight ‘No-Go’ blocks, objected to by Ministry of Defence.
Companies already invested $10.7 billion in these five blocks and a further investment of $0.6 billion is envisaged in these blocks.
Earlier, out of the total 40 blocks, where E&P activities were stopped for want of clearances from Defence and Commerce Ministries, one block was cleared by the Ministry of Commerce which had overlapped with an SEZ area.
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