ANI | India's energy strategy mindful of commitments to global commons: Hardeep Puri

Oct 12,2022

Twenty-five per cent of global energy demand growth in the next two decades is going to emanate out of India, Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri said and noted that India's energy strategy is mindful of commitments to the global commons.

Minister Puri made these remarks while attending a roundtable on "Opportunities in the India-US Strategic Partnership" in Houston, Texas.

"India's energy strategy is mindful of commitments to the global commons, to green transition and to ensure energy availability, affordability and security to all," Puri said while addressing the event.

The Minister also mentioned that India had taken many steps towards low carbon development, including through emerging fuels like hydrogen and biofuels. He emphasised 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 a roundtable on "Opportunities in the India-US Strategic Partnership" 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, Cheniere, Lanzatech, Honeywell, BakerHughes, Emerson, Tellurian to name a few. Indian Energy PSUs also attended the event.

The Minister further stated that India was undertaking major reforms to rationalize and incentivise Exploration and Production by reducing the no-go areas by 99 per cent opening up approximately 1 million sq km, and making good quality geological data available through the National Depository Registry.

As a gesture of commitment of the Government of India to the E&P (energy and petroleum) sector, the special Coal-bed Methane (CBM) round and offshore bid rounds in the oil and gas capital of the world (Houston) offering over 2.3 Sq lakh km, after opening up over 1 million sq km of No Go areas recently, was launched by the Minister.

In a series of tweets, Puri stated that the immense potential between the two countries in areas of biofuels, gas-based economy, green hydrogen, petrochemicals and upstream sectors is evident and is being furthered by collaboration by our private sector companies.

He further stated, "Due to reform measures by Modi Govt, there is unprecedented interest in Indian E&P by global oil companies."

The discussion was concluded with broad-based support from the participants to push forth with potential partnerships which will bring the best-in-class technologies in both traditional energies and new energies to India.