The company also plans to lay an 80-kilometer pipeline to carry natural gas from fields in Arunachal Pradesh to Assam. | Representative photo: Bloomberg
State-run Oil India Ltd plans to invest Rs 25,000 crore in clean energy projects to help achieve the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, its chairman Ranjit Rath said on Saturday.
OIL’s net-zero plan includes a combination of reducing gas flaring and trading retained gas, as well as establishing renewable electricity generation capacity, building green hydrogen plants and constructing biogas and ethanol plants.
The net-zero plans will go hand in hand with its aim to boost crude oil and natural gas production to 9 million tonnes of oil and gas equivalent by 2025-26 from 6.5 million tonnes produced in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, he told reporters here.
The company also plans to lay an 80-kilometre pipeline to carry natural gas from fields in Arunachal Pradesh to Assam to help replace polluting liquid fuels in transport and industries.
“Achieving net zero emissions involves a range of activities,” he said.
It has already confirmed plans for 640 MW solar projects in Assam and another 150 MW in Himachal Pradesh, he said.
OIL joins other state-owned companies that are investing billions of dollars to help India as a nation achieve net-zero emissions by 2070.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the country’s largest oil company, is targeting net-zero emissions by 2046, while oil and gas producer ONGC has announced an investment of Rs 2 trillion to achieve the same target by 2038.
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and gas services company GAIL (India) Ltd are also targeting net-zero carbon emissions from their operations by 2040, while Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) wants to achieve this by 2046.
Rath said OIL is drilling more wells and stepping up exploration in a bid to boost crude oil production to over 4 million tonnes and gas output to 5 billion cubic metres.
“Last year we drilled 61 wells and the year before that 45. This year’s drilling plan is for more than 75 wells,” he said.
While drilling more wells will reverse the 12 percent decline in production that has been established in mature fields, the company is also increasing exploration to exploit new deposits, as well as using technology to increase production from existing fields.
On its subsidiary Numaligarh refinery in Assam, Rath said the capacity expansion, from the current 3 million tonnes per annum to 9 million tonnes at an estimated cost of Rs 28,000 crore, is targeted for completion by December 2025.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First published: September 14, 2024 | 21:25 IS
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