Mining conglomerate Vedanta Ltd will invest USD 4 billion over the next three years to double oil production, its chairman Anil Agarwal said on Tuesday as he pushed ahead with an aggressive oil and gas expansion programme, PTI reported.
Vedanta is targeting 300,000 barrels per day (15 million tonnes a year) oil output in 3 years from an aggressive exploration campaign, he said on the sidelines of the India Energy Week (IEW), as reported by PTI.
The company is pushing ahead with the investment undeterred by concerns around debt levels at parent Vedanta Resources.
"India is the best place to be in right now. It has the resources as well as the market," he said. "But unfortunately we (as a country) produce just 15% of our (energy) need and the rest is imported," Agarwal said.
"We are excited about the prospects and will continue to invest," he said. He told the same at the CEO's roundtable that Prime Minister Narendra Modi held on the sidelines of IEW. "We told him (PM) that we are bullish on India and see a lot of prospects. The country has the right regulatory framework now and the right environment," he said.
Asked about his wishlist, he said taxes on oil and gas production in India are as high as 65% against the global average of 35 percent, PTI reported.
"It is our wish that the taxes are brought down to global levels to give us parity with global players, he said, adding the government should also give leases of oil and gas blocks till their economic life and not an ad-hoc number of years so as to help companies plan better with their investment strategy. Agarwal said India -- the world's third-largest oil importer -- can become 50% energy self-sufficient. His company has tied up with US oilfield service companies including Halliburton and Baker and Hughes to scale up capacity, PTI noted.