India’s Hydrocarbon Outlook 2024 191 A Report on Exploration & Production Activities under EC. This has enabled the upstream E&P oil and gas companies to use secondary data as the baseline data beyond 12 NM. 8.1.3 Year 2021 March 2021: Streamlining EDS MoEF&CC vide OM dated 15th March 2021, attempted to streamline the process of granting Environment Clearances about Essential Details Sought (EDS) by placing a ceiling of 30 days after which the MoEF&CC shall exclude the proposal from the pendency list. This issue had been pursued by DGH since long and has given a respite in terms of breaking the deadlock between the E&P Operators and the Ministry in terms of movement of the proposal. December 2021: Application for B2 Projects 15th December 2021: EC application form for B2 projects was released by MoEF&CC to enable them to fill in the application. Upstream industry is supposed to fill Form-2 on PARIVESH in case the proponents are going for an exploration surveys. 8.1.4 Year 2022 April 2022: Simplification in CRZ procedure for exploration drilling Earlier, under EIA Notification 2006 the composite clearance was given to Oil & Gas proposals, whereas EC and CRZ both clearances were involved, which demanded time in approval. Therefore, DGH requested for exemptions for exploratory drilling and seismic surveys from Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification Jan, 2019 through ECC meetings for early initiation of E & P activities at site. Considering the fact that exploration activities are very temporary and short duration activity the matter was discussed in the subsequent meetings of ECC. However, after a series of communications and meetings with DGH, MoEFCC, in 26.04.2022 and 29.11.2022 Office memorandum have been issued by MoEFCC elaborating the procedure for clearance of permissible activities as per the CRZ notification, 2011/IPZ notification 2011. This OM clarifies that any project located in CRZ areas that requires EC under Category B shall be considered by the concerned SEIAA only (without involvement of Expert Appraisal Committee(EAC), MoEFCC as required before issuance of this OM), for issuance of combined EC and CRZ clearance. Thus, the issue of expeditious clearance for exploration activities is addressed by appraisal of drilling activities at the State level by granting composite clearance (EC + CRZ). May 2022: Rationalization of Validity of EC In the Lafarge case, the Supreme Court mandated that Environmental Clearance (EC) for projects involving forest land be granted only after obtaining Stage-I Forest Clearance (FC), preventing a fait accompli situation. Accordingly, the Ministry grants EC post Stage-I FC, although appraisals occur in anticipation of FC. FC, under the FCA 1980, is a two-stage process: Stage-I (in-principle) and Stage-II (conditional compliance). Project work can commence only after Stage-II FC and other necessary approvals. To address delays in obtaining Stage-II FC, the Ministry clarified that EC validity is extended by the time taken to obtain Stage-II FC, up to a maximum of two years.
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