India Eases Rules for Unconventionals

The Indian government is soon expected to announce a new policy making it easier to explore unconventional hydrocarbons for operators who are exploring conventional oil and gas in the same block.

According to a report by Business Standard published May 21, under the new policy operators of blocks under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) and pre-NELP rounds will be able to access shale oil, shale gas, coalbed methane (CBM) and gas hydrates from the same blocks where they are extracting conventional oil and gas.

In 2016, India launched Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licencing Policy (HELP), which was formulated after several lawsuits and only limited production output from the NELP rounds.

The new policy will enable the government to sign a contract with a company if it wants to explore unconventional oil and gas in an already allotted area, Business Standard reported, adding that in the same block, while the traditional hydrocarbons will be extracted under the existing production sharing contract model, the unconventional oil and gas might be produced under a revenue-sharing model.

This new policy comes just weeks after the government changed the rules to make it easier for state-owned Coal India to explore for coalbed methane from its coal mines.