New Delhi, Dec 5 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi today invited global hydrocarbon companies to explore and produce in India, promising to replace ‘’red tape with red carpet.’’ ‘’Our constant efforts have improved India’s ranking in Ease of Doing Business. Let me assure you that our commitment is strong and our motto is to replace Red Tape with Red Carpet, the Prime Minister said, inaugurating the Petrotech Summit here. Mr Modi also urged indigenous oil and gas sector companies to take the opportunity to tie up with their foreign counterparts to explore for more equity oil. Indian energy companies must become multinational; and work towards India-Middle East, India-Central Asia, and India-South Asia energy corridors, he said. Recent acquisitions of hydrocarbon assets in Russia by investing 5.6 billion dollars for fifteen million tonnes of equity oil equivalent, are one such instance, he added. The Prime Minister underlined the need to increase the country’s domestic oil and gas production to reduce import dependence, and pointed out that his government had set a target to reduce import dependence by ten per cent by 2022, which would have to be achieved during a period of increasing oil consumption. Last year, he said, the government had announced the new Marginal Fields Policy, under which, 67 fields were offered for bidding, throwing up estimated Oil plus Oil equivalent Gas reserves of 89 Million Metric Tonnes,whose estimated recoverable reserves were of the order of 30 Million Metric Tonnes. He also underlined the importance of natural gas as the next generation fossil fuel - cheaper, and less polluting, and said the government had given priority to move towards a gas based economy. Efforts must be made to increase natural gas production while also creating import infrastructure to meet the growing domestic demand, the Prime Minister said. ‘’ Natural gas will also have an important balancing role to play as India’s renewable energy production rises. To provide balance and peaking power, gas-based power will be critical,’’ he said. More UNI NAZ SV 1242