Page 50 - Policy Economic Report_Mar'25

POLICY AND ECONOMIC REPORT
OIL & GAS MARKET

The Bill is part of the government's reforms agenda to make it easier to find and produce crude oil
(which is refined into fuels like petrol and diesel) and natural gas (which is used to generate power,
make fertilizer or turn into cooking gas and CNG).

It decriminalized some of the provisions of the original 1948 law by introducing penalties in place of
imprisonment of up to six months.

The bill introduces 'petroleum lease' and expands the definition of mineral oils to include crude oil,
natural gas, petroleum, condensate, coal bed methane, oil shale, shale gas, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil
and gas hydrate. This is with a view to raising domestic output and cutting reliance on imports.

India currently imports more than 85 percent of its crude oil needs and about half of its natural gas
requirement.

"We have 42 billion tonnes of oil and oil equivalent reserves and a sedimentary basin spanning 3.5
million square kilometers," Puri said, adding most of it is untapped.

Pilot Projects on Hydrogen Fuelled Buses and Trucks Launched under the National Green Hydrogen
Mission

As part of the National Green Hydrogen Mission, the Government has initiated five pilot projects for
using Hydrogen in buses and trucks. Earlier the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy had issued
guidelines for implementing Pilot projects in the Transport Sector under this Mission.

Accordingly, the proposals were invited for different types of hydrogen-based vehicles, routes, and
hydrogen refuelling stations. After detailed scrutiny, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has
sanctioned five pilot projects consisting total of 37 vehicles (buses and trucks), and 9 hydrogen refueling
stations. The vehicles that will be deployed for the trial include 15 hydrogen fuel cell-based vehicles and
22 hydrogen internal combustion engine-based vehicles. These vehicles will run on 10 different routes
across the country viz., Greater Noida – Delhi – Agra, Bhubaneshwar – Konark – Puri, Ahmedabad –
Vadodara – Surat, Sahibabad – Faridabad – Delhi, Pune – Mumbai, Jamshedpur – Kalinga Nagar,
Thiruvananthapuram – Kochi, Kochi – Edappally, Jamnagar – Ahmedabad, and NH-16 Visakhapatnam –
Bayyavaram. The above projects are awarded to major companies like TATA Motors Ltd, Reliance
Industries Limited, NTPC, ANERT, Ashok Leyland, HPCL, BPCL, and IOCL.

The total financial support for selected projects made available will be around Rs. 208 Crore from the
Government of India. These pilot projects are likely to be commissioned in the next 18-24 months,
paving the way to the scaleup of such technologies in India.

The thrust area for providing support under the scheme is the development of commercially viable
technologies for the utilization of hydrogen in the transport sector as fuel in buses and trucks and
Supporting infrastructure like Hydrogen refuelling stations.

One of the objectives of the Mission is to support the deployment of Green Hydrogen as fuel in buses
and trucks, in a phased manner on a pilot basis. These pilot projects can demonstrate safe and secure

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