In the opening address Dr R.K. Malhotra, Director General, FIPI reiterated the key objective of North East Vision Document i.e. Leveraging Hydrocarbon sector for development of the region. He talked about the first programme organised by FIPI in 2017 at Kaziranga after the Vision document was released in 2016. He also mentioned that the second such programme organised by FIPI is to review the progress and capture the challenges & constraints in the region. The major points discussed were the challenges faced by E&P companies to increase their exploration and production activities, supply of clean fuel, providing pipeline connectivity for LPG, Development of gas grid, generating employment etc.

There were three eminent Speakers in the opening session representing the major oil & gas companies operating in Assam. 1. Shri Utpal Bora, Chairman & Managing Director -Oil India Ltd. 2. Shri S. K. Moitra, Director (Onshore) ONGC 3. Shri S. M. Vaidya, Executive Director IOCL

Shri S. M. Vaidya, Executive Director, IOCL in his opening speech reminded about the huge requirement of refinery by 2030 and the need of massive upgradation and use of natural gas in Refinery/power to have an optimised running of the refinery system.

While mentioning the NE vision related to downstream sector he mentioned about the preparedness of refineries like Digboi, NRL, Guwahati & Bongaigaon for upgradation of the old refineries. He also mentioned about the infrastructure upgradation for marketing of products like POL, Petrochemicals etc. He desired augmentation of the oil production by the upstream companies so that IOC can reduce the dependency on imported oil from outside for feeding the refineries located in Assam.

Shri S. K. Moitra, Director (Onshore), ONGC in his opening speech showed his aspiration of doubling the production from 4 MMT to 8 MMT, the target set in the vision document, by drawing analogy between reserve base of Assam & Rajasthan which is 450 MMT vs 251 MMT respectively. He mentioned that even Rajasthan with a lower reserve base is producing more than double production of Assam. So, there is no doubt that by induction of technology and removing small bottlenecks, North East can achieve the Vision targets.

He also requested his colleagues to convert challenges and constraints into opportunities by changing mind sets. He congratulated HOEC for introducing modular based structure for its onshore gas plant.

He opined that technology implementation can bring all the changes and requested FIPI to take up policy matters like Gas Marketing, pricing, Single window clearances etc.

In his inaugural speech Shri Utpal Bora, Chairman & Managing Director, Oil India Ltd. mentioned that based on the recent reassessment of sedimentary basins reserve all over India, the potential is 42 billion tonnes of O+OEG & only 12 billion tonnes of O+OEG has been discovered. Out of 42 billion tonnes Assam Arakan basin holds 18% of it and out of 12 billion tonnes of discovered reserves A&A basin holds 16%. So there is a huge potential of yet to find reserve (YTF) in NE region

He brought out the fact that the major challenges are in seismic imaging, lithology, drilling in fold belt areas.

He compared Assam Arakan basin with Cambay Basin and termed it as a Super basin in India. Lot of opportunity exists in developing the basin.

He mentioned that for all clearances onus is also with the operators. There is substantial improvement in local disturbances and all to work together to achieve the objective of vision document 2030.

The programme included three technical sessions covering Upstream, Downstream and Midstream segments of oil & gas business.

In the Valedictory Session of the program Shri P. K. Sharma, Director (Operations), OIL, Shri S M Vaidya, Executive Director, IOCL and Shri Apurba Kr Bhattacharya, Sr. CGM, NRL participated as panellists. The session was moderated by Dr. R. K. Malhotra, DG, FIPI. The panel speakers gave summary and Key Takeaways from the sessions on Upstream, Midstream and Downstream held during the program. They also presented the overall opportunities available in NE Region, the challenges faced by the industries and the possible remedial measures and viable solutions to make the vision 2030 feasible.

In the end, session was opened to delegates for their views/suggestions/comments etc. & different ideas for improvement. Shri T.K. Sengupta, Director (E&P) FIPI mentioned that in future programmes representatives from service industry also need to be roped in to share their views as they are the main service providers to make the vision 2030 feasible. He also opined that as ONGC & OIL is working in the same basin, they can jointly work on common areas of technical challenges to achieve a common solution and also share their technical strength & weakness generated in handling the problems.

Dr R K Malhotra, Director General FIPI thanked everyone for their participation and also announced that the next program in the series will be held in September 2019 at Gangtok.

The vote of thanks was given by Shri N.K. Bansal Director (Refinery & Marketing) FIPI.

The program was a grand success.

Full Report on 2nd program on Realising Hydrocarbon Vision 2030 for North East India