The government expects foreign direct investment in the hydrocarbon sector to pick up, said Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) secretary Ramesh Abhishek who added that the key driver will continue to be the public sector companies, which will invest Rs 3 lakh crore over the next three years.

The sector attracted 40 percent more FDI in the past two and a half years than in the previous corresponding period, Economic Times quoted him as saying.

Abhishek said that in the past two and a half years our FDI policy has been hugely liberalised and the result has been positive.

“In last two and a half years we have attracted $129 billion of FDI, but there is a huge need for investment given that India is the third largest consumer of energy in the world," said Abhishek while addressing Petrotech 2016.

Prime minister Narendra Modi had said at the same event that India needs to scale up domestic oil and gas production to cut imports. He said that Indian energy companies need to evolve into multinational companies.