India will harness all energy sources
India’s engagement with the global energy community has to be continuous. Speaking at CERA Week conference, said Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
“India cannot work in isolation, as from a global perspective, global market shifts, technological disruptions, financial markets and paper trading, and possible disruption in the form of energy transition are shaping the future of energy security,” he said on 15 Oct 2018 in Delhi.
Any action on energy must take into account the global consensus achieved by the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the “Paris Agreement” of 2015 and decisions of the G20 Leaders’ meeting in Hamburg in 2017 that regard energy security as one of the guiding principles for energy transition, he pointed out.
Pradhan highlighted India’s lead role in International Solar Alliance (ISA) with 60 solar-rich countries.
“As the third largest consumer of energy and one of the fastest growing, in a volatile global environment, we cannot just rely on one source of energy,” he said.
India will harness all sources of available energy -solar, wind, hydro, coal, oil, gas, nuclear, bio-fuels etc., the Minister assured.
Mentioning about the recent progress made on the reforms and implementation of initiatives, Pradhan said “the upstream licensing round under Discovered Small Field and the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OLAP) has been successfully completed.”
OLAP under HELP is now a continuous process backed by a transparent data repository.
Policy to incentivize enhanced oil recovery which will further help boost upstream activity in India.
He said that in a big boost to the City Gas Distribution (CGD) network expansion, in the 9th round of bidding, 86 licenses have been offered and bid out.
Among other initiatives, India has been giving a big push towards harnessing bio fuel with the launch of National Bio Fuel Policy of 2018.
Test flight was carried out from Dehradun to New Delhi with a blend of 25% bio jet fuel and 75% ATF in August this year.
A scheme to promote compressed bio-gas in a big way has been launched.
Expansion of the gas grid continues in the East, North-East and Southern parts of the country and several LNG regasification terminals are coming up, said Pradhan.
In the last 2 years, national oil companies have made significant acquisitions in some of the world-class producing blocks in Russia, the UAE and Oman.
He said furthering the agenda for energy security, “our cabinet has recently approved the second phase of building strategic oil reserves in Odisha and Karnataka. This will be done in a public-private partnership mode.”
But severe head winds have been faced by way of rising oil prices over the past one year, he pointed out.
Since the last CERA week in New Delhi, crude prices have gone up 50% in US Dollar terms and 70% in Indian Rupee terms. Much of it is to do with geo-political events imposed on the world.
He solicited the suggestions towards further improving the investment climate in the oil and gas sector.
“Our industry and research institutes need to come together to develop technology for CO2 Capture, Hydrogen Fuel cells, Gas Hydrates, Hydrogen-Injected CNG, Coal to gas.” fiinews.com
