PM Modi to skip oil CEO meet over scheduling issues

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is believed to have cancelled a brainstorming meeting with global oil and gas experts and CEOs, which was slated for October 14, over scheduling issues, sources said.The fourth annual meeting that coincides with the CERAWeek – the world’s premier energy event – was scheduled for Monday afternoon but was cancelled due to the Prime Minister’s engagements, they said.The meets, held under the aegis of Niti Aayog, have been a sounding board for the government to reorient policies to attract the illusive investment in finding new oil and gas reserves and bringing them to production so as to cut India’s oil import dependence.French energy giant Total SA’s Chairman and CEO Patrick Pouyanne and UK’s BP plc Group Chief Executive Bob Dudley were among the leaders who were scheduled to attend the meeting with the Prime Minister on October 14.The meeting and other such feedback mechanism had led to the government doing course corrections on some of its policies, particularly the exploration licensing policy and natural gas pricing rules.
The government had, going against the industry advise, brought in a revenue sharing model for allotting oil and gas acreage. Under the 2016 policy, bidders offering highest share of oil and gas to government were allotted the blocks but the regime failed to attract big names to exploration scene as companies preferred risks to be covered.Two years later, the government reversed it and went back to allocating blocks to companies that offered largest exploration programme with a guarantee of first recovering all such cost from oil and gas found.Similarly, the 2014 policy of pricing natural gas at rates prevalent in gas exporting countries failed to enthuse any new investments, prompting it to bring in a new rate for fields in difficult areas such as deep sea.