CCI clears 13 pending power projects, 25 oil and gas blocks

The government today approved 13 power projects, entailing investments worth Rs 33,000 crore, which were pending approvals due to various reasons. Twenty five oil and gas blocks with investment commitment of about $7 billion also got approval during the same meet.

Of the 20 power projects reviewed by the newly appointed Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI), 13 projects involving investment of about Rs 33,000 crore have been cleared,which include 10 transmission, one hydro and two thermal projects.

There were 10 projects from transmission sector awaiting clearances for Stage-I and Stage-II forest clearance from MoEF, three projects from hydro sector and seven projects from

thermal sector awaiting clearances from other Ministries.

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While the statement on oil blocks did not give break-up of the blocks cleared, the 31 blocks with restrictive conditions were imposed included 13 of Reliance Industries-BP combine, 15 of

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state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) or its lead consortium, two blocks of Santos of Australia and one block of Cairn India-led consortium.

For these blocks, the Defence ministry had imposed stringent conditions like asking companies not to locate any pipelines or structures on sea surface in the blocks cleared for exploration and production activities. Subsea/submerged permanent structures, if any, were to be located more than 100 metres below sea surface or outside the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)/Indian Air Force (IAF) danger zone area (on sea surface) or Naval exercise areas.

The oil industry saw these conditions as impractical and after discussions, the conditions have been substantially diluted now. "Out of 31 blocks, 9 blocks have been fully cleared and 16 blocks have been cleared with specific conditions. Due to clearances given at this meeting, investment already made to the extent of $2.71 billion will be put to use and further investment to the extent of$1.9 billion will be made in the exploration activities in the next 3-5 years," it said.

Agencies