The CCEA has approved a policy for grant of extension to the Production Sharing Contracts signed by the government awarding Pre-New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) exploration blocks to enable and facilitate investment to extract the remaining reserves. <br/><br/>The policy aims at bringing out clear terms of extension in fair and transparent manner so that the resources can be expeditiously exploited in the interest of energy security besides improving the investment climate. This policy will also give boost to accelerate and supplement indigenous production of hydrocarbon from existing blocks. <br/><br/>It will be a progressive step towards achieving the target of 10 per cent reduction in import of crude oil by 2022. The extension of the contracts is expected to bring extra investments in the fields and would generate both direct and indirect employment. <br/>The CCEA has approved closure of CREDA HPCL Biofuel Ltd (CHBL) and IndianOil – Chhattisgarh Renewable Energy Development Agency (CREDA) Biofuels Limited (ICBL). An official release said, all liabilities have also been settled and the closure of the CHBL and ICBL would result in saving unfruitful expenditure on statutory compliance. <br/><br/>