Minister for petroleum and natural gas, Ram Naik had earlier said that exploration in other countries would help India increase its crude volume as it was signing deals for discovered fields only. The ministry has finalised deals with Vietnam, Iraq and Russia for crude exploration and more deals are likely to follow, added Mr Naik.

He added that this is one of the many measures adopted by the ministry to promote oil security in India. The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) Videsh, which handles overseas exploration, will pump Rs 8,000 crore in developing oil fields in Russia. This will in turn benefit India to the extent of an equal amount of oil and gas production from the three states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Tamil Nadu put together, said ONGC officials.

About four metric tonne of crude annually, and 12 cubic metres of gas daily, will be supplied to India. ONGC has also entered into an agreement with Vietnam for deep sea exploration and the development of oil and gas fields in Vietnam.

Apart from this, the ministry has also asked ONGC to extract an additional 0.5 million tonne of crude in the current year in order to arrest the inflating oil import bill. This additional crude will save the country approximately Rs Rs 500 crore in foreign exchange, sources close to the ministry said. The total import bill for oil stands at about Rs 800 crore this year. India imports about 70 per cent of its crude requirement, which is about 110 million tonne annually.

Officials hoped that the oil blocks awarded to oil companies under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) would also increase the volume of crude though none of the blocks have yielded oil so far.