Unprecedented interest in Indian E&P following reforms, says Minister
India’s energy strategy is mindful of commitments to global commons, to Green Transition and to ensure Energy Availability, Affordability and Security to all, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has assured delegates at a meeting in Houston on 12 Oct 2022.
Addressing a roundtable on “Opportunities in the India-US Strategic Partnership”, Puri said that 25% of global energy demand growth in the next 2 decades is going to emanate out of India.
“India has taken many steps towards low carbon development, including through emerging fuels like hydrogen and bio-fuels,” said Puri, emphasizing that despite the current challenging energy environment, India’s commitment to energy transitions and its climate mitigation goals, is not going to diminish.
Puri chaired the roundtable organized by US-India Strategic Partnership Forum.
The roundtable brought together over 60 participants from 35 companies, including senior leadership of energy majors like Exxonmobil, Chevron, Chieniere, Lanzatech, Honeywell, BakerHughes, Emerson, Tellurian.
Indian Energy PSUs also attended the event.
Puri stressed that India was undertaking major reforms to rationalize and incentivise Exploration & Production by reducing the no-go areas by 99%, opening up approx. 1 million sq km exploitable acreage and making good quality geological data available through the National Depository Registry among other initiatives.
As a gesture of the Government’s commitment to E & P sector, the special Coal-Bed Methane (CBM) round and offshore bid rounds offering over 2.3 sq lakh km was launched by the Minister in Houston.
In a series of tweets, Puri listed the immense potential between India and the US in areas of biofuels, gas-based economy, green hydrogen, petrochemicals and upstream sectors.
“These opportunities are evident and are being furthered by collaboration by our private sector companies,” he said.
There is unprecedented interest in Indian E&P by global oil companies, especially supported by the Government reforms, he underlined.
The discussion was concluded with broad-based support from the roundtable participants to push forth with potential partnerships which will bring the best-in-class technologies in both traditional energies and new energies to India. fiinews.com