Overview
- Hardeep Singh Puri announced the overhaul Monday in what he called a landmark fix, days after the petroleum ministry issued a revised royalty schedule under the Oilfields Act.
- Effective crude royalties drop to 10% for onshore and 8% for offshore production, while gas shifts to an 8% take using a flat deduction that removes 20% of the sale price for nomination blocks and 15% for others before royalty is computed.
- Deepwater and ultra-deepwater projects under the DSF and HELP regimes get zero royalty for the first seven years of commercial output, then 5% for deepwater and 2% for ultra-deepwater.
- Older regimes keep concessional terms too, with deepwater set at 5% for the first seven years and 10% after, and the notification adds basin-based breaks for HELP bids since April 11, 2019 plus a 10% royalty cut on verified extra gas from APM fields.
- Officials frame the reset as an energy security step during the West Asia crisis and higher Brent prices, and early coverage highlights likely cost relief for ONGC and Oil India as a possible catalyst for new drilling.