The work of extracting oil from the oil reserves in Krishna-Godavari basin will start soon. Recently, for the first time, it has been announced to extract oil from new discovery. A big project of ONGC, India’s largest company of crude oil and natural gas, is going on in this basin. A target has been set to extract 45 thousand barrels of oil every day from four oil wells by June this year. According to estimates, this supply will increase the country’s oil and gas production by seven percent. It is noteworthy that India imports about 85 percent of its oil requirements. A large amount of foreign exchange is spent on this and the financial deficit also increases. In such a situation, the start of oil production from Krishna-Godavari basin is an important phenomenon. Praising this production, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rightly said that this is a significant step in India’s energy journey and will give impetus to the ‘Self-reliant India’ campaign. Just as border security is important for the country, similarly it is necessary to ensure security in the fields of food and energy. We have already achieved the goal of self-reliance in the field of food production. Since we are heavily dependent on imports for oil and gas, factors such as geopolitical crises and increases in oil prices by producing countries increase our expenditure. When the prices of oil and gas increase, everything becomes expensive. India has good relations with big oil and gas producing countries, so there is no problem regarding supply, but if the scope of production and refining increases in the country, then we can spend the savings in import expenditure on other essential items. It is noteworthy that there are 26 wells in the Krishna-Godavari basin, out of which four are operational. Natural gas is also being produced from these. This achievement has been achieved at a time when the fears of deepening global energy crisis and disruption of the supply chain are increasing. The government has set an ambitious target of supplying 25 percent of the country’s oil requirements from domestic production by 2030. The basin will make an important contribution towards achieving this goal. It can be easily estimated that when production reaches its peak in the coming years, millions of barrels of oil will be extracted every day. It should also be underlined that retail prices of oil have not increased in the country since May 21 last year. There is also significant growth in the field of green energy.
