India Poised To Export Oil, Oil Products Worth $40 B

New Delhi: India is poised to export oil and its products worth $40 billion, thanks to the good performance of refineries both in the private and public sector in the country, Government said today.

"Today, we are in a position to export oil and its products worth $40 billion. Our refineries, particularly Reliance and Essar in the private sector, and also those in the public sector are doing very well," Petroleum Minister Murli Deora told Rajya Sabha.

Deora said this while winding up a brief discussion on the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Petroleum Technology Bill, 2007 which was passed by the House unanimously.

The Bill seeks to establish the institute at Jais in Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, represented by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, as an institution of national importance.

It is intended to meet the growing requirement of trained manpower in the sector which would be about 36,000 by 2019, Deora said while piloting the Bill.

The institute is designed to serve as the fountainhead for nurturing of world class technical human resource capable of serving as the leaders and innovators of tomorrow in the field of petroleum technology, as per the statement of objects and reasons of the bill.

It has become necessary to intensify exploration efforts with a view to achieve one hundred per cent coverage of all unexplored basins in a timebound manner, the bill said.

Deora said though the international crude oil price had touched $100 a barrel, the Government had spared the poor by not increasing the price of Kerosene oil.

"The Government has to bear a heavy loss on this account," he said.

Lauding the performance of both private and public sector oil refineries in the country, Deora said when the chiefs of oil majors like Chevron, Exxon and Mobil come to India, they say Indian refineries were doing better than those in the US and the UK.

He said new refineries would be set up in Paradip (Orissa), Bhatinda (Punjab) and Bina (Madhya Pradesh).

Emphasising the importance of setting up the institute, he said 1999 had witnessed the advent of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP), which has been progressively made more and more attractive.

"This policy has evoked great enthusiasm among foreign companies as well as Indian private and public sector companies for acquiring exploration acreage in India," he said.

While as on date only 30 per cent of the sedimentary basins in the country have been explored, it was planned to increase the exploration coverage to 100 per cent by 2015, he said.

Deora said that the proposed Rs 435 crore institute will commence its operations by admitting students in basic undergraduate courses from 2008-09. On its becoming fully operational, it would have seven B.Tech, six Integrated Masters Degress, eight M.Tech/MBA and 12 PGD and PhD programmes.