A regulator for everything downstream of the wellhead, but not for production itself

Background

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board Act of 2006 extends to the whole of India and set up a regulator for the storage, transportation, processing, refining, distribution, marketing and sale of petroleum, petroleum products and natural gas. The production of crude oil and of natural gas is kept outside the Act, which is why the Board is described as a downstream regulator. The Central Government notified that the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board stood established with effect from 25 June 2007. Its Chairperson and members are appointed by the Central Government from persons of eminence in management, finance, law, administration, consumer affairs or the petroleum and natural gas industry, on the advice of a Search Committee, and a Member (Legal) must either be qualified to be a judge of a High Court or have held a Grade I post in the Indian Legal Service for at least three years. They hold office for five years or until the age of sixty-five, whichever comes first, and are not eligible for re-appointment, though the Act adds that appointing a member as Chairperson is not treated as a re-appointment. The Board registers entities to sell notified fuels, to run liquefied natural gas terminals and to hold large storage, and it authorises them to lay, build, operate or expand pipelines and city or local natural gas distribution networks. It declares a pipeline a common carrier or a contract carrier, regulates access and transportation rates through a pipeline access code, lays down technical and safety standards, and an Appellate Tribunal hears appeals from it. The regulator has reported that compressed biogas blending in piped and vehicular gas reached 1.7 per cent in the first half of this financial year against a mandated 3 per cent, with 210 working plants running at about 44 per cent of capacity.