Upstream Ahead Summit charts out oil & gas industry vision 2050

New Delhi: The first edition of 'Upstream Ahead – Oil & Gas Exploration & Production – Towards Vision 2050' summit was held on February 11-12, under the aegis of Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas (MoPNG) and Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), providing a platform for all key stakeholders to come together and drive powerful solution-based dialogues for a smooth way forward. Hosted by ONGC, OIL, Cairn Oil & Gas (Vedanta Ltd.), and HOEC, the summit witnessed six Insight sessions, five spotlight sessions, two high-intensity discussions chaired by the Petroleum Secretary Tarun Kapoor and MoEF&CC's Additional Secretary Ravi Agrawal and two special interactive sessions on gender diversity and inclusion, and youth in the energy sector.

The one-of-its-kind virtual summit hosted intellectual panels of more than 70 speakers from the Oil & Gas Industry across the globe, along with experts from financial and academic institutions, regulatory authorities & central ministries, service providers, consulting firms, and institutions like NITI Aayog, World Energy Congress, MNRE, DPIIT, FICCI, etc. with registered participants reaching a grand number of 7,000 (+). This magnificent virtual summit, well accommodating the needs of any offline conclave, was successfully managed by social friendly.

In the backdrop of Prime Minister's clarion call for Aatmanirbhar Bharat, seeking progress in the upstream sector is crucial to reducing our nation's import dependence. With large resources unexplored, ongoing onshore and offshore surveys, and data availability for better analysis, the sector is provided with immense possibilities and requires all stakeholders to get on board as a team in this journey towards Vision 2050, said Petroleum Secretary.

According to DGH's DG SCL Das, the discourses of this well-structured summit aid to deliver in short packages as part of a continuum, embedded in the commonly shared belief about the future. The event is a curtain-raiser, engaging all the stakeholders and bringing a 'Thinking Element' into the whole exercise, he added.

Numerous positions and points of view have been outlined over the course of two days, covering the whole spectrum of the oil and gas exploration & production sector.

With progressive reforms such as OALP and NDR intensifying the exploration efforts, ONGC had taken a strategic decision to enhance its focus on unexplored areas, said ONGC's CMD Shashi Shanker. To reach the target of meeting 50 percent of demand indigenously by 2050, he called for bold steps to venture into unknown territories to intensify exploration, to improve overall recovery factor attempting to match benchmarked analogous fields across the world and eventually realise the untapped potential of unconventional resources.

The need for targeted approach employing Play based explorations supported by seismic and non-seismic technologies and digitalisation initiatives has been voiced out by ONGC's Director (Exploration) RK Srivastava and unequivocally echoed by the eminent panellists of the session he chaired.

There is an emerging need for the E&P sector to align with national objective of energy security. In light of this, the significance of mature fields is increasing over time. Techniques like EOR & ASP are paving the way for improving recovery and optimising mature fields, expressed ONGC's Director (Onshore) Anurag Sharma.

The oil & gas industry is subject to a persistent challenge of improving its environmental footprint. A high-intensity discussion on proactive steps taken by MoEFCC for ease of conducting oil and gas E&P activities has shown a way forward towards Vision 2050, reflecting a committed collective responsibility towards the improvement of the environmental quality of life.

Fostering the growth of domestic OFES industry, to make India self-reliant in E&P sector equipment, formulating procurement plans are vital to unveil the opportunities lying ahead for indigenous manufacturers and MSEs, harmonizing with the government's policies under Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, as emphasized by ONGC's Director (T&FS) Om Prakash Singh.

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ONGC's Director (HR) Dr Alka Mittal very aptly stated that gender diversity is non-negotiable. A panel of experts led by her strongly believed that the energy sector needs to shift the dial by driving efforts to gender sensitization and improving gender ratio across all levels to create a diverse and inclusive workforce equipped with the required knowledge and skills.

An interactive youth session brought to light the youth's perception of the future of oil and gas resonating with that of the government. Being the drivers of change, they have the innovation potential, environmental sensitivity, and social connectivity to boost our efforts towards Vision 2050.

With this summit, the organisers are committed to generate a robust conference proceedings note, which will have a clearly defined role of the individual stakeholders and act as a base document for the upstream sector for future reference and monitoring purposes periodically. A monitoring group has already been created under Chairmanship of MoPNG's DS (Projects) Arvind Nath Jha.

The whole ecosystem of policies for the E&P sector in its maturing stage connected with the determined efforts towards EODB have cumulatively resulted in a revamp of the regime, a hallmark of E&P development. MoPNG's Joint Secretary (Exploration) Amar Nath in his words expressed that this summit is complimentary for the industry and the government to innovate and move towards a long term vision of self-reliant India. The collating perspectives from such a summit of global potential and focusing on short-term actionable outcomes is imperative for the Indian E&P sector to sustain its vibrant role in realizing Vision 2050.

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