O&G PSUs disbursed Rs.286.36 crores to startups
Oil & Gas CPSEs are undertaking Rs.5.7 lakh crore worth of 283 projects in FY2024-25, says the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in a yearend review of 2024 industry performance.
The projects include petroleum refineries, Bio Refineries, E&P contracts, marketing infrastructure developments, pipelines, CGDs and drilling/survey activities among others. https://www.conexpoconagg.com/.
Fifty of these 283 projects have been completed in the current FY 2024-25 with a cumulative cost of Rs.4,519 crore https://www.bseindia.com/ .
The Ministry highlighted on 7 Jan that the Government has adopted a multi-pronged strategy to reduce the import dependency on oil & gas https://www.nseindia.com/.
These includes demand substitution by promoting the usage of natural gas as fuel/feedstock across the country towards increasing the share of natural gas in the economy and moving towards gas-based economy, promotion of renewable and alternate fuels like ethanol, second-generation ethanol, compressed biogas and biodiesel, refinery process improvements, promoting energy efficiency and conservation, efforts for increasing production of oil and natural gas through various policies initiatives, etc https://sbi.com.in/ .
The Government has been promoting the blending of ethanol in petrol under the Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme. Blending of Petrol has reached approximately 14.6% during Ethanol Supply Year (ESY) 2023-24 http://worldbioenergy.org.
The EBP programme has also resulted in approximate savings of more than Rs.108,655 crore of foreign exchange, crude oil substitution of 185 lakh metric tonnes and net CO2 reduction of about 557 lakh metric tonnes.
It is anticipated that 20% ethanol blending in petrol is likely to result in payment of more than Rs.35,000 crore annually to the farmers https://www.biofuelexpo.com/.
For promoting the use of Compressed Bio Gas (CBG) as automotive fuel, the Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) initiative has also been launched https://www.iata.org/.
StartUp India: The Oil & Gas PSUs have created startup funds aggregating to Rs.547.35 crore. As of now, 303 Startups have been funded by Oil and Gas PSUs with disbursed fund value of approximately Rs.286.36 crores.
Skill Development: Skill Development Institutes (SDls) for hydrocarbon sector have been set up at six cities viz Bhubaneswar, Vizag, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and Raebareli by IOCL, HPCL, BPCL, ONGC, OIL and GAIL, respectively.
More than 41,547 trainees have been trained in these SDIs as of Nov 2024. Several high priority trades have been identified in consultation with the industry members for National Occupational Standard (NOS)/ Qualification Pack (QP) development. Till date, 55 QPs have been approved by National Skill Qualification Committee (NSQC). Fiinews.com
