GAWAHATI: Oil India Limited (OIL) has set up an OIL Start-Up fund of 50 crore to encourage new “out of the box” ideas related to the oil and gas sector, particularly in the Northeast. 

The oil exploration major’s chairman-cum-managing director Utpal Bora today said in a press conference that the initiative was in line with the Centre’s ‘Start-up India’ initiative.

“The OIL Start-Up fund is to encourage students, young entrepreneurs and institutions to come out with out of the box ideas for the benefit of the oil and gas sector that is contributing enormously to the growth of the economy,” Bora said. 

The initiative was to create an ecosystem that was conducive for growth of start-ups in the oil and gas sector, which has a huge scope for application of technology-enabled ideas, he said. 

“Currently the sector faces various critical challenges and new ideas are required to negotiate those challenges. OIL will be partnering with institutes of excellence in the Northeast like IIT-Guwahati to take this initiative forward, wherein the institutes will facilitate ‘idea incubation’ for carrying out studies and experiments,” Bora said. 

The government-run company also plans to create a dedicated website for its Start-Up initiative, inviting applications with project ideas, besides inviting through newspaper advertisements in the region with special attention given to ideas from students in technical institutions and universities. 

The ideas or applications would be evaluated and examined by a screening committee comprising experts from within OIL and outside, Bora said, adding that the identified thrust areas were enhanced oil recovery, gas flaring in remote areas, environmental issues, renewables and ageing pipelines.

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