India struggles to expand its upstream
The Indian government is hoping that new regulations will encourage investment in the upstream oil and gas sector to offset rising imports
Shashi Shanker, the chairman of India's state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), says his firm is investing Rs 920bn ($14.15bn) in 35 major projects, including 14 to bring new finds to production and six to improve recovery from ageing fields. ONGC also plans to almost double its natural gas production within five years. But it has some significant hurdles to overcome. ONGC is the country's biggest gas producer, accounting for nearly 80% of the 70m cubic metres a day current output, and almost 70% of oil production coming from mature fields. The state company had targeted output of 22.73m tonnes (179.57m barrels) of crude oil in 2015-16, but managed only 22.37m. The company's oil
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