New Delhi, Jan 20 (IANS): Petroleum Minister M. Veerappa Moily Monday approved the constituting of a multi-organisational team to reassess the country's hydrocarbon resources.

The minister approved "a Multi Organisation Team (MOT) to carry out re-assessment of hydrocarbon resources of India in all its 26 sedimentary basins. The exercise will cover all the 26 sedimentary basins of India," an offcial statement here said.

"Resource assessment is required to be completed within 30 months," it added.

It said the last such exercise was carried out in 15 sedimentary basins around two decades ago and is overdue for full scale revision in view of the vast amount of data collected since then, the ministry said.

"There is also an urgent need for the fresh estimation in the remaining 11 sedimentary basins as well, for which no hydrocarbon resources have been estimated so far," it said.

The MOT has been asked to estimate the resources of 3.14 million square km of the 26 sedimentary basins of India and prepare a basin-wise portfolio.

MOT will comprise of exploration heads of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) and Oil India Ltd. and will also have an official from the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH).

The team will carry out the resource assessment at Oil and Natural Gas Corp's Keshav Dev Majviy Institute of Petroleum Exploration (KDMIPE) in Dehradun.

A National Steering Committee headed by the petroleum secretary and including the regulator Director General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), exploration heads of ONGC and Oil India and the head of the KDMIPE, has been set up to periodically review the work done.

KDMIPE will utilise the geo-scientific data available with them and the DGH to assess the resources.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) last year, estimated India's oil and gas resource potential at 206 billion barrels of oil and oil equivalent.