India imports about two-thirds of its crude oil requirement. Exploration and production of oil and gas is critical for India's energy security and economic growth. Reliance's oil and gas exploration and production business is therefore inexorably linked with the national imperative. Exploration and production, the initial link in the energy and materials value chain, remains a major growth area and Reliance envisions evolving as a global energy major.
Over the years the E&P industry has registered significant growth, primarily due to spiraling crude oil and gas prices. With growing competition and ever growing demand for energy, especially from developing countries, the focus is on energy security. India's share is a meagre 0.5 % of global oil reserves of 1,189 billion bbl, while it consumes 3.2 % of global oil consumption every year.
The growing demand for crude oil and gas in the country and policy initiative of Government of India towards increased E&P activity, have given a great impetus to the Indian E&P industry raising hopes of increased exploration.
Under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) of Government of India, blocks have been acquired by various E&P companies for exploration. The efforts have resulted in a number of oil and gas discoveries in India and have changed the perception and prospects of the Indian sedimentary basins and the focus on Indian E&P Industry.
RIL is the largest Oil & Gas acreage holder among the Private sector companies in India with 34 domestic exploration blocks covering an area of about 331,000 sq. km. This is in addition to its interest in one exploration block each in Yemen and Oman RIL also has 5 coal bed methane (CBM) blocks covering an area of about 4,000 sq. km.
RIL is India's first private sector company in the Exploration and Production (E&P) sector to have discovered large gas reserves. The E&P strategy of RIL is aimed at further enhancing the level of vertical integration in its energy business, and realising value across the entire energy chain, while fulfilling important national priorities.
In the years to come, RIL is well positioned to be amongst the largest value creators in the upstream oil and gas sector. RIL's portfolio of E&P assets, gives it the potential to create value across entire value chain from wellhead to burner tip. Accretion of new reserves through exploration, development of existing oil and gas reserves and development of related downstream infrastructure facilities would result in significant value creation for RIL in future. RIL has achieved a high success rate of 74 % in terms of discoveries made from the wells drilled thus far, excluding wells under evaluation.
