OREANDA-NEWS. April 21, 2011. The Ministry of Oil and Petroleum Natural Gas today said it will review the causes behind non-achievement of gas production targets by oil and gas companies as per the field development plans.

"The present gas production is between 50-52 mscmd per day in the country, but as per the field development it should have been to the order of 58-60 mscmd, which is being looked into by the regulator Director General Hydrocarbon (DGH) and the government," oil and gas Secretary S Sundareshan said.

"I am not going into the reasons because they are being examined and the DGH has suggested some corrective steps. A detailed review of the companies will be held this week to examine the causes," Sundareshan said.

"The gas production from Panna Mukta Tapti (PMT) fields is likely to be 12 mscmd from the 17 mscmd in the past," he said.The PMT field is jointly owned by the BG group, Reliance and ONGC. "In regard to meeting the shortfall of gas we can grade up imports of LNG and we are doing that. The average imports of Petronet LNG will now be equal to 10 million tonnes against the 7.5 MT," Sundareshan said.

"The government has garnered close to USD 12 billion from the development of blocks auctioned in last three NELP rounds," he said. "On an average each round of NELP auction has fetched the government an estimated USD 1 billion towards the minimum work programme, which is the committed work programme," Sundareshan said.