The petroleum ministry has gone into overdrive with two recent policy announcements. It decided to offer 69 small oilfields for development through an international bidding process and has floated a consultation paper on the future contours of oil and gas exploration policy. The controversies with Reliance over the KG-D6 field development led the UPA government to constitute the Rangarajan Committee to suggest an appropriate contractual framework for petroleum exploration and production in the country. Probably, at least in part as a response to dissatisfaction of oil companies with this report, another committee under Vijay Kelkar—which included members with experience in the upstream petroleum industry—was constituted over two years ago to suggest measures to meet India’s hydrocarbon requirements over the next two decades. The recommendations of this committee, which landed on the table of the current government over a year ago, appear to have been partially acted upon. […]