India is the sixth largest consumer of oil in the world and the ninth largest crude oil importer. India’s oil and gas sector contributes over 15% to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). According to Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, India has a total reserve of 1201 million metric tonnes of crude oil and1437 billion cubic metres of natural gas as on 01 April 2010. The total number of exploratory and development wells and metreage drilled in onshore and offshore areas during 2009-2010 timeframe was 428 and 1019 thousand metres respectively.Crude oil production during 2009-2010 timeframe was 33.69 million metric tonnes and gross production of Natural Gas in the country was 47.51 billion cubic metres during 20092010. The production of petroleum products during 2009-2010 was 151.898 million metric tonnes (Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas).However, due to huge demand-supply gap in oil and gas in India, it imports more than 60% of its crude oil requirement.Further, oil consumption in India is projected to enhance by 4-5% per annum to 2015, indicating a demand of 4.01 million b/d by 2015. As per the Business Monitor International (BMI) forecast, India will account for 12.4% of Asia Pacific regional oil demand by 2015, while satisfying 11.2% of the supply.Due to increasing refining capacities, exports of petroleum products are high in terms of the foreign currency amassed and accounts for 17% of the total exports. India’s exports of refined products stood at 0.95 million barrels per day as of June 2011 and US$ 4.6 billion worth of petroleum products were exported during July 2011. Vastness of this sector is corroborated by the fact that there were a total of 130,000 people employed in the petroleum industry in 2009-2010.
2. Oil and natural gas sector - Introduction
2.1 Value chain
The oil industry can be divided into three major components: upstream, midstream and downstream. The upstream industry includes exploration and production