8,363 Oil & Gas projects worth Rs 5.88 lakh crore kick-started since April 2020

The government today said that 8,363 projects worth Rs 5.88 lakh crore have been kick-started in the oil and gas sector since April 20, 2020, in India despite the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas said, these projects of Oil and Gas CPSEs, include refinery projects, biorefineries, marketing infrastructure projects, pipelines and drilling activities.

Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan said the economic activities or projects were kick-started by the domestic petroleum industry by maintaining all pandemic-related Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel Dharmendra Pradhan has been holding in-depth reviews of all on-going projects of Oil & Gas Companies, the recent one being on August 24, 2020.

The Ministry said, Petroleum Industry has turned the crisis into an opportunity and is striving to work on mission mode to generate employment and revive growth.

Oil and Gas entities in their role as key actors are working on a war footing and contributing to the green shoots of economic revival already visible through the backward and forward linkages of the oil and gas industry.

The sector is a key driver of economic growth and these projects provide a boost to the national economy. The Ministry said a total of over 33 crore man-days of employment is expected to be generated towards the completion of these projects. Of this, around ten crore man-days of employment generation are targeted in this financial year itself.

The ministry added that the projects include 25 major ongoing projects worth Rs 1.67 lakh crore and have incurred capital expenditure of Rs 7,861 crore worth of Capex leading to the generation of 76,56,825 man-days.

These projects of state-owned Oil & Gas companies and their Joint Ventures or subsidiaries include refinery projects, E&P projects, bio-refineries, pipelines, CGD projects, marketing infrastructure projects, drilling and survey activities.

Out of the total anticipated cost of these projects, approximately Rs 1.20 lakh crore is targeted to be incurred as CAPEX in FY 2020-21. In FY 2020-21, till August 15, 2020, around Rs 26,576 crore worth of CAPEX has already been incurred. Further, in FY 2020-21, around Rs 3,258 crore has been reported to be payout accrued on labour account during this period.

The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas in its release said, a total of around Rs 1.62 lakh crore, CAPEX and employment-oriented OPEX, is targeted to be spent by the Oil and Gas companies in FY 2020-21. It has the potential to generate employment of around 24 crore man-days (direct/indirect).

This amount spent would create a virtuous cycle of investments and will certainly play a crucial rule in the revival of the Indian economy and will also provide employment opportunities to people of our country.