India’s Hydrocarbon Outlook 2024 199 A Report on Exploration & Production Activities 1 Km from the Protected Areas /corridors/ wildlife sensitive areas. ii. The State Government shall ensure that the recommendations made in the General Standard Operating Procedures, annexed as Annexure-I, submitted by the Wildlife Institute of India will be complied with strictly by the User Agency. iii. The DGH will facilitate the formulation of detailed regional-specific guidelines by the Wildlife Institute of India. The necessary financial support, as will be required by the WII, will be arranged by the DGH. iv. The Region-Specific guidelines, as may be prescribed by the WII, will be complied with by the User Agency and DGH. An undertaking in this regard, wherever applicable, will be obtained by the State Government while allowing drilling through ERD technology. v. The exemption considered for the ERD technology will not be applicable if the drilling area falls inside the Protected Areas notified under theWild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 and Eco-Sensitive zone of Protected Areas. November 2023: Research study to be conducted by WII for impact assessment of Extended Reach Drilling (ERD)/Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) technologies with surface facilities on wildlife and aboveground biodiversity of the forest, outside the forest boundaries. ERD/HDD technologies are eco- friendly technologies for extracting oil and gas from remote and otherwise inaccessible locations, including areas of ecological significance such as National Parks and Bird Sanctuaries. It is noteworthy that earlier, these technologies necessitate Forest Clearance under FC Act, 1980. Considering that this is an advanced environment friendly technology, the matter was placed before the ECC in 2020 as a policy issue “The non-applicability of Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 for Oil & Gas projects implemented by utilizing ERD (Extended Reach Drilling) technology from outside the forest area without any diversion of forest land”. The proposal was accepted by the MoEFCC through an Office Memorandum dated September 12, 2023, subject to certain conditions. Among these conditions was a directive for the DGH to provide financial support to the WII for developing regionspecific guidelines. In response, the WII submitted a proposal for a five-year study with a budget of 8.4 Crore. This proposal received in-principle approval from the DGH and is currently awaiting final approval from the MoPNG. It is anticipated that the project will commence soon, bringing benefits to all E&P operators.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTE0OTM0OQ==