India is hugely dependent on imported energy resources and unless we unshackle out of this dependence we will not progress in real terms. India must move forward to adopt latest technologies and explore for scarce energy resources by every mean. Public has to be taken along is paramount, no doubt.
There could be some inconvenience to the public but ultimately we have to weigh what’s important, to balance and to move forward. Making oil companies accountable is one thing (like railways and airlines are accountable towards our travel safety), stopping would have negative impact on this developing nation. Issues relating to environment and public health should be debated in order to work out solutions, not to stop the works altogether which is easier. Govt clearances are always necessary to commence any such operation and public hearings are required as per procedures. Environmental risks too are assessed by govt sources. Advocacy from public activists will be more constructive tool in this regard. You can play enabler.
What is most important emerging out of these incidents (and ensuing discourses like the one you wrote) is reluctance of the oil companies to be adequately transparent and their inability to win over the public opinion by involvement. People very rarely know what exactly oil companies do at their drilling operations. Even educated opinion builders like activists and media have never seen the complex real operations to enable them to vouch for oil company’s words. That lack of first-hand knowledge gets reflected in opinion of the activists, and sometimes media also, having guided by the information sourced from internet which is searched with ‘keywords’ biased with what they desired to look for and not what might be the reality of the oil and gas exploration and production activities. Those search finding too could be of value but may offer only one side of the story.
Latest innovations in oil exploration the world over have only made it possible recently for us to enjoy lower crude oil prices enabling countries like India to save billions of dollars in imports and divert huge investments towards public welfare. There had been initial public doubts in US and other countries too, but the companies, the governments and the opinion makers together worked to create enabling atmosphere for technology to bring in acceptable, better and safer solutions for moving ahead for prosperity of their respective nations.
Hydrocarbon exploration is one of the most complex science. That’s the reasons most advanced of the supercomputers are made for oil exploration activities. The geology under surface is extremely difficult to visualize and estimate otherwise.
Oi and gas is produced normally from depths far the below surface level (thousands meters) where anything connected to human habitat or vegetation would be of any concern of. It is also not all that by choice that oil company would decide where to drill and could move away from decided location. Once the hydrocarbon potential is found to be ‘expected’ at a location, one needs to focus on areas as close as ‘few meters’ radius with in that to look for oil and gas by drilling of the wells.
Oil and gas Exploration & Production (E&P) activities the world over have been some of the safest usage of technology. There have been accidents but when one looks at larger time scale, even collateral environmental impacts have been very few. Oil industry has always been in deep public focus and scrutiny and that’s the reason large part of the E&P investments is towards safety. Companies like ONGC pay millions of dollars as insurance premium to secure their activities but have very rarely required to take relief because of the excellent safety track records. The accidents (though a rare) like what happened in Gulf of Mexico at BP platform caused involved companies to bear over about 30 billion dollar compensations. But that also reflects that E&P companies have responsibilities which they can’t ignore and have to carry at the top of all their agenda.
It would potentially be retrograde to discourage discovering sources of energy which are most essential for India's growth and prosperity of the people. The country like India is hardly in position to not scout for its own energy resources.
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