Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will Sunday inaugurate India's biennial oil and gas knowledge networking forum Petrotech-2005 that is expected to draw some 2,500 delegates and experts from the country and abroad.

Organised by the Petrotech Society, a non-profit organisation of the oil and gas industry, under the aegis of the Indian petroleum ministry, the sixth international oil conference and exhibition will be held at Pragati Maidan here during Jan 16-19.

The meeting will focus on "Value from Hydrocarbons - Advances in Science and Technology", said A.K. Balyan, chairman of the event's organising committee and director of human resources at the Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC).

"In the past, the Petrotech series of international conferences has provided ample opportunities to global players in the hydrocarbon industry to interact and deliberate on various issues," he said.

The focus of the global meet is to promote cooperation among petroleum producing and consuming countries through interaction and sharing of developments in the upstream exploration and petroleum downstream sectors.

Discussions will be held on various aspects of the energy sector, including non-conventional gas sources with participation from Canada, Malaysia, the UAE, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the US, Britain, Switzerland and Norway.

Showcasing the present Indian oil and gas scenario with an eye on the future, Petrotech will see first-time participation from France, Senegal, Serbia, Poland and Israel.

The energy minister from Ecuador, where India is seeking a stake in an exploration block, is also expected to attend the mega petroleum event.

Top executives of around 230 companies, including over 30 from overseas, will be present at the event that will see some 430 research papers being presented by Indian experts and 120 papers by overseas experts.

A concurrent exhibition, a buyer-seller meet and a retail track have also been organised in association with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Confederation of Indian Industry.

It will also kick-start India's road show to invite bids for the fifth round of exploration blocks being offered under the new exploration licensing policy (NELP).

Subir Raha, chairman and managing director of ONGC and chairman of the Petrotech steering committee, said: "In the quest for new sources of energy, gas hydrates is an important step in which we are moving toward a pilot stage."