Global oil majors see surge in Indian demand for natural gas
Global oil and gas majors are looking to India, the world’s third biggest oil importer, to buy some of their excess liquefied natural gas (LNG) as the South Asian nation improves its gas infrastructure and strives to reduce emissions. Spot LNG prices have more than halved since last year due to oversupply as producers battle for market share. The Indian market looks set to grow, however. The country is investing $60 billion in gas infrastructure, including setting up cross-country pipelines and LNG import terminals to connect gas-starved regions to supply hubs. Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has said that by the end of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s current term in 2024, India will be ready with a cross-country natural gas grid. “India is emerging as a major demand centre for gas. India is going to be a very exciting market … We see it as an important energy market for decades to come,” Peter Clarke, senior vice president of global LNG at Exxon Mobil Corp told Reuters at the India Energy Forum by CERA Week, on Monday. Exxon signed a memorandum of understanding with India’s biggest state-owned oil refining company Indian Oil Corporation Ltd on Monday to explore “new models of delivering cost-effective natural gas in India.” “We see great potential here,” Bill Davis, lead country manager of South Asia at ExxonMobil, said in a statement. Exxon also has a deal to supply LNG to Petronet LNG Ltd, India’s biggest gas importer, under a long-term agreement from its Gorgon Project in Australia. India currently consumes 166 million standard cubic metres per day (mscmd) of gas out of which half is met through LNG imports, according to government data. India’s current gas consumption is not a true reflection of its demand potential as the nation lacks infrastructure to transport gas. Most of its LNG import infrastructure is located in the western part, leading to higher gas consumption there compared with the rest of country. Total SA said on Monday it was buying a 37.4 per cent stake in private Indian gas distribution company Adani Gas Ltd. The French company also said it would explore opportunities in Adani Group’s LNG terminals in the east and west coast. “We want to bring competitive LNG to India,” said Total Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne. Pouyanne added that one of the reasons Total recently bought a major LNG project offshore Mozambique was because the project was “perfectly positioned to deliver LNG to India very efficiently.” Total has committed to investing $600 million in India’s gas business and “there is more to come,” Pouyanne said. India’s gas demand is expected to double to 75 billion cubic metres by 2030, energy consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie said on Monday. LNG will account for half of this demand, or equivalent to 10 per cent of today’s global LNG market, the consultancy firm said. Global majors are also bullish on India’s domestic gas production and hope it will complement imported LNG to meet the growing need of cleaner fuels than coal and oil. India allows companies to charge higher prices for natural gas produced from difficult and challenging fields. “I believe that there is close to 100 tcf (trillion cubic feet) of natural gas resources yet to be found below ground here in India,” said Bob Dudley, CEO of British oil firm BP Plc. BP, in a tie up with Reliance Industries, is investing $5 billion in India’s east coast to produce gas starting in April or May 2020, he said. “That in itself can meet half of the natural gas demand out to 2050,” Dudley added, referring to India’s gas reserves.
No choice but to invest in oil: Shell CEO Ben van Beurden
Royal Dutch Shell still sees abundant opportunity to make money from oil and gas in coming decades even as investors and governments increase pressure on energy companies over climate change, its chief executive said. But in an interview with Reuters, Ben van Beurden expressed concern that some shareholders could abandon the world’s second-largest listed energy company due partly to what he called the “demonisation” of oil and gas and “unjustified” worries that its business model was unsustainable. The 61-year-old Dutch executive in recent years became one of the sector’s most prominent voices advocating action over global warming in the wake of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Shell, which supplies around 3% of the world’s energy, set out in 2017 a plan to halve the intensity of its greenhouse emissions by the middle of the century, based in large part on building one of the world’s biggest power businesses. Still, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from Shell’s operations and the products it sells rose by 2.5% between 2017 and 2018. A defiant van Beurden rejected a rising chorus from climate activists and parts of the investor community to transform radically the 112-year-old Anglo-Dutch company’s traditional business model. “Despite what a lot of activists say, it is entirely legitimate to invest in oil and gas because the world demands it,” van Beurden said. “We have no choice” but to invest in long-life projects, he added. Shell and its peers have long insisted that switching away from oil and gas to cleaner sources of energy will take decades as demand for transport and plastics continues to grow. Investors have warned, however, that oil companies often rely on forecasts that underestimate the pace of change. Shell plans to greenlight more than 35 new oil and gas projects by 2025, according to an investor presentation from June. Oil and gas remain the backbone of profits for Shell, the largest listed company on London’s main FTSE index . While oil and gas account for the entirety of Shell’s free cashflow today, it foresees a gradual diversification over the next two decades. Oil and gas are each still expected to provide a third of free cashflow, however, with the rest coming from power and chemicals. Many oil and gas projects such as gas-processing plants, deepwater platforms or chemical plants take billions of dollars to develop and operate for decades. “RED HERRING” Shell, like many rivals, has become more selective in its investments as the outlook for oil prices and demand remains unclear. It targets new projects that can be profitable at oil prices of $20 to $30 a barrel and which emit relatively low greenhouse emissions. Oil is trading at around $60 a barrel. “We can sustain an upstream portfolio all the way into the 2030s if there is an economic rationale for doing that and a societal rationale for doing that,” van Beurden said. “Fortunately enough, we have more of those than we have money to spend on them.” Van Beurden rejected as a “red herring” arguments that Shell’s oil and gas reserves, which can sustain its current production for around eight years, would be economically unviable, or stranded, in the future. A lack of investment in oil and gas projects could lead to a supply shortage and result in price spikes, he said. “One of the bigger risks is not so much that we will become dinosaurs because we are still investing in oil and gas when there is no need for it anymore. A bigger risk is prematurely turning your back on oil and gas.” Shell plans to increase its annual spending to around $32 billion by 2025 from the current $25 billion, with up to one tenth allocated to renewables and the power business. The company, the world’s largest dividend payer, plans to return $125 billion to shareholders in the five years to 2025. On liquefied natural gas, of which Shell is the world’s biggest trader, van Beurden said the market would exhibit oversupply in the near term. “But (LNG) demand will continue to grow at a pace that is roughly four times that of oil,” he said. Shell has become a focal point of environmental protests, particularly in Europe, with regular demonstrations outside its London headquarters and the British National Theatre dropping Shell’s sponsorship in recent months. At the same time, investors have sharply increased their scrutiny of companies’ environmental performance. Amid growing uncertainty over future demand, the share prices of Shell and its peers have underperformed relative to other sectors. Van Beurden expressed concern that some investors could ditch Shell, acknowledging that shares in the company were trading at a discount partly due to “societal risk”. “I am afraid of that, to be honest,” he said. “But I don’t think they will flee for the justified concern of stranded assets … (It is) the continued pressure on our sector, in some cases to the point of demonisation, that scares asset managers.” “It is not at a scale that the alarm bells are ringing, but it is an unhealthy trend.” Van Beurden put the onus for achieving a transformation to low-carbon economies on governments, warning that not enough progress had been made to reach the Paris climate goal of limiting global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. “Can that happen? I think it can … Increasingly society is not putting up with the fact we are not making enough progress.” Delaying implementation of the right climate policies could result in “knee-jerk” political responses that might be very disruptive to society, he said. “Let the air out of the balloon as soon as you can before the balloon actually bursts,” van Beurden said.
ONGC free to sell stake in HPCL: Dharmendra Pradhan
Amid reports of ONGC’s inability to derive any benefit out of its HPCL acquisition, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said the state-owned firm was free to sell its stake in the oil refining and marketing company. In its most expensive acquisition ever, Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) last year paid Rs 36,915 crore to buy government’s entire 51.11 per cent stake in Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL). Despite being the majority stakeholder in the company, ONGC has only got one member on the board and virtually no say in the management. HPCL didnt even recognise ONGC as its promoter for almost one-and-half-years before a Securities and Exchange Board of India rap forced it to list its majority owner as a promoter. Since acquiring the stake, ONGC has only been able to appoint one director to that firm’s board. HPCL head Mukesh K Surana continues with the title of Chairman and Managing Director despite corporate governance structure mandate of only one chairman in a group and subsidiaries being headed by managing directors or chief executive officers (CEOs). When asked if the government had given ONGC nod to sell stake in HPCL, Pradhan told reporters that “These are market decisions. They are autonomous companies. They are free to take their own decision at appropriate time.” ONGC had hoped that the addition of an oil refining and marketing company would make it a vertically integrated oil and gas company when it had acquired government stake in HPCL in January last year. However, no tangible synergies have flowed to the company. The acquisition turned ONGC from a zero-debt company to a firm with no cash and a huge debt pile. Sources said, since the government had repealed the acts that nationalised HPCL and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL), ONGC is now free to sell the stake. The board of ONGC has on at least one occasion debated on the logic of retaining the stake in HPCL when no synergies were flowing, they said. HPCL by virtue of being 51.11 per cent owned by a state-owned firm had continued to be classified as a public sector undertaking. But with the act that promised its nationalised PSU character no longer there, it can be sold in parts or full to a strategic investor, they said. The government had in 2016 repealed the legislations that had nationalised HPCL and BPCL. The Repealing and Amending Act of 2016 had annulled “187 obsolete and redundant laws lying unnecessarily on the statue-book” including the Act of 1970s that had nationalised HPCL and BPCL. HPCL was incorporated in 1974 after the takeover and merger of erstwhile Esso Standard and Lube India through the Esso (Acquisition of Undertaking in India) Act passed by Parliament. The Supreme Court had in September 2003 ruled that BPCL and HPCL can be privatised only after Parliament amends a law it had previously passed to nationalise the two firms. Besides others, the 2016 legislation approved by the Parliament listed repealing in “the whole” The Esso (Acquisition of Undertakings in India) Act, 1974, The Burmah Shell (Acquisition of Undertakings Act, 1976 and The Caltex [Acquisition of Shares of Caltex Oil The whole] Refining (India) Ltd and of the Undertakings in India of Caltex (India) Ltd] Act, 1977. The Supreme Court had in September 2003 cited the Esso (Acquisition of Undertaking in India) Act and the Burmah Shell (Acquisition of Undertaking in India) Act, 1976 and Caltex (Acquisition of Shares of Caltex Oil Refining India Ltd and all the Undertakings in India for Caltex India Ltd) Act, 1977 to rule that the government cannot privatise HPCL and BPCL without approaching Parliament for changing the Nationalisation Act.
Indian Oil Corp, ExxonMobil sign MoU for collaboration in LNG business
American oil and gas firm, ExxonMobil, on Monday said it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), India’s largest fuel retailer, to expand liquefied natural gas (LNG) initiatives in the country. “What really matters is how we accelerate India’s access to affordable, cleaner energy. We see great potential here, and are delighted to join forces with IndianOil to unlock lasting value for India,” said Bill Davis, lead country manager, South Asia at ExxonMobil in a statement. The MoU was signed between IOC and ExxonMobil India LNG Ltd, an affiliate of ExxonMobil. “This initiative focuses on exploring new models of delivering cost-effective natural gas in India where it is most needed to complement traditional pipelines,” the company said in a statement. It added that the MoU builds on the long history of productive cooperation between IOC and ExxonMobil in the LNG space.
Total, RIL unlikely to bid for BPCL; BP wants to see whats on offer
French energy giant Total SA as well as oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries are unlikely to bid for acquiring India’s second biggest oil refining and marketing company BPCL, while UK’s BP plc said it wants to see what is on offer before deciding to bid. The government is looking at selling its 53.29 per cent stake in BPCL to a strategic investor in the biggest privatisation bid in the history of India. BPCL has a market capitalisation of Rs 1.05 lakh crore and its acquisition together with the mandatory open offer to minority shareholders would cost upwards of Rs 82,000 crore. On a visit here to attend an industry conference, Total Chairman and CEO Patrick Pouyanne said the company was interested in investing in downstream petrochemicals and retailing market in India but was “not interested in Indian refineries”. The French giant announced buying 37.4 per cent stake in Adani Gas – which retails CNG to automobiles and piped cooking gas to households besides developing import terminals and a national chain of petrol stations. Reliance, which operates the world’s biggest refinery complex at single site, too is unlikely to bid as it is already in talks to sell out a fifth of its oil-to-chemicals business to Saudi Aramco to cut down high debt it had taken for its foray in telecom business, sources said. It is unclear if Saudi Aramco, which is keen to enter the world’s fastest growing energy market, will bid alone or with some other partner such as Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (Adnoc). BP chief executive Bob Dudley said it was “early days” for the privatisation of BPCL. “We need to see what is on offer,” he said. On September 30, a group of secretaries on disinvestment gave its approval for to sell government’s entire 53.29 per cent stake in BPCL, which is likely to be completed by March 31, next year. BPCL is the country’s the second-largest state-owned refining and marketing firm, accounting for 15 per cent of total installed refining capacity. In addition, it markets 21 per cent of petroleum products consumed in the country by volume as of March this year. It operates four refineries at Mumbai, Kochi in Kerala, Bina in Madhya Pradesh and Numaligarh in Assam with a combined capacity to convert 38.3 million tonnes of crude oil into fuel. It has 15,078 petrol pumps and 6,004 LPG distributors. India has a total refining capacity of 249.4 million tonnes and 65,554 petrol pumps and 24,026 LPG distributors.
Cabinet to consider splitting GAIL, pipeline business not to be sold before 2022
The Union Cabinet may by next month consider a proposal to hive off state-run gas utility GAIL (India) Ltd’s pipeline business into a separate entity but its sale to a strategic investor may not happen before 2022, sources privy to the development said. GAIL is India’s biggest natural gas marketing and trading firm and owns more than two-thirds of the country’s 16,234-km pipeline network, giving it a stranglehold on the market. Users of natural gas have often complained about not getting access to GAIL’s 11,551-km pipeline network to transport their fuel. Sources said to resolve the conflict arising out of the same entity owning the two jobs, bifurcating GAIL is being considered. A proposal is likely to be moved before the Union Cabinet for transferring the pipeline business into a 100 per cent subsidiary, they said adding the proposal may be considered and approved by the Cabinet this month or latest by November. After the Cabinet approval, a consultant will be appointed to transfer the pipeline business into a separate subsidiary. This would take 8-10 months to accomplish, they said. However, selling off the pipeline subsidiary to a strategic investor is not likely before 2022 as the thinking in the government is that the gas market will not be mature before that and state support would be needed for GAIL to accomplish building a national gas pipeline grid. GAIL will continue to own the marketing business as also the stakes in liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals. Previously, the government was considering transferring marketing business into a separate subsidiary for a sell-off at a later date but now a hive off of pipeline business is being considered. GAIL has multiple long-term contracts to import gas in its liquid form (LNG) from countries such as the US and no strategic buyer would like to take the responsibility of those, particularly when the fuel is available at a cheaper price in the spot or current market, the sources said. They said it is now being considered that GAIL continues with the marketing business that would include all the sale contracts as also city gas retailing. Post-2022, the pipeline business can be sold to a strategic investor such as Canadian asset management company Brookfield that recently bought a 1,480-km pipeline owned by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries (RIL). The sources said the strategic partner will operate the pipelines and give access on a non-discriminatory basis to any entity wanting to transport gas either from a natural gas field or an LNG import terminal to consumers. GAIL already keeps separate accounts for its gas pipeline and marketing businesses, making it easier to split them into two entities. By unbundling GAIL and opening the sector, the government hopes to increase gas use to 15 per cent of the energy mix by 2030 from current 6.2 per cent. When talk of splitting first started in January last year, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had stated that GAIL should focus on laying pipelines, suggesting hiving of the marketing business. Incorporated in August 1984 by spinning off the gas business of ONGC, GAIL owns and operates over 11,500-km of natural gas pipelines in the country. It sells around 60 per cent of natural gas in the country. The sources said the oil ministry has not been very happy with GAIL’s performance in building the pipeline network. Besides, there is a possible conflict of interest in its role as an infrastructure provider and carrier. GAIL did not start executing the Rs 12,940 crore Jagdishpur-Haldia and Bokaro-Dhamra pipeline until the government agreed to give 40 per cent of the project cost as a grant from the budget. The pipeline takes the gas to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, Varanasi. Plans to split the company had been discussed more than a decade back too but these did not materialise. The sources said refiners Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) had in 2017 evinced interest in acquiring GAIL to expand their gas marketing business. GAIL also owns a petrochemical plant at Pata in Uttar Pradesh, which too could be sold to either IOC or BPCL. The company had in the past resisted the split on grounds that it’s gas marketing and transmission businesses operate at arm’s length and hence do not need to be separated. GAIL’s marketing business formed 76 per cent of its 2018-19 total sales and about 30 per cent pre-tax profit. The government has a 54.89 per cent stake in GAIL India.
Reliance Industries to swap diesel for Venezuelan crude oil in barter
Reliance Industries will pay for Venezuelan crude oil via exports of diesel in a barter arrangement as it resumed taking supplies from the US sanctions-hit Latin American nation after a gap of four months. Although US oil sanctions imposed on Venezuela in January 2019 have no direct secondary component, oil companies such as Reliance Industries (RIL) that have a significant US presence have curtailed their commercial ties with the Opec nation. Reliance had in March capped oil purchases from the Latin and halted selling diluent. “RIL has been supplying permitted products like diesel to Venezuela and, hence, is able to recommence crude sourcing. These are actions compliant to US-sanctions as crude sourcing against the supply of permitted products is allowed,” a company spokesperson said. Following US sanctions, companies had shunned direct purchases in favour of secondary market sourcing through Russia’s state-controlled Rosneft, which is now the primary supplier of Venezuelan oil. US President Donald Trump had in January slapped oil sanctions on Venezuela in a bid to put pressure on its socialist President Maduro to step down. The sanctions, however, do not ban importing crude oil from Venezuela, but barred supply from the US of the diluents that must be blended with the extra-heavy oil from Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt so it could flow through pipelines. RIL, which operates twin refineries with a capacity to process 1.36 million barrels per day of crude oil at Jamnagar in Gujarat, had a contract to buy around 3 million barrels of crude oil from Venezuela a month, which was reduced to about 2 million barrels by March 2019. Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, has been placed on the US Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals List, which generally prohibits American citizens from dealing with named firms or individuals. This has resulted in international banks and shipping companies as well as Reliance ceasing any transactions. These restrictions come into force on March 29 after an eight-week winding down period for contracts that were already in effect. In March, RIL had stated that its “US subsidiary has completely stopped all business with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and its global parent has not increased crude purchases.” “In addition, since sanctions were imposed and contrary to some news reports, Reliance has halted all supply of diluent to PDVSA and will not resume such sales until sanctions are lifted,” it had stated. Oil from the Orinoco needs to be diluted with lighter grades to reduce its viscosity so as to allow its flow through pipelines to the coast for export or processing. Besides Reliance, Rosneft-backed Nayara Energy is the primary buyer of Venezuela oil in India, because their advanced refining systems can process the thick Venezuelan grade into high-value fuels such as gasoline, low-sulfur diesel and jet fuel. Venezuela shipped around 3,08,000 barrels per day of crude during January-August to India.
Pradhan appeals to FM Nirmala Sitharaman to include natural gas and ATF in GST
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today appealed to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to take up the petroleum sector’s long-pending demand of including petroleum products under the ambit of Good and Service Tax (GST). “There has been continuous demand from the petroleum industry for inclusion of petroleum products under GST regime. I make a strong appeal to Hon’ble Finance Minister to take this up in the GST council and at least make a beginning by including natural gas and ATF in the GST,” Pradhan said at India Energy Forum by CERAWeek, an industry event. Pradhan informed that various oil and gas bidding rounds conducted by the government under Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) and the Discovered Small Field (DSF) round will lead to an investment of $58 billion in the exploration and production sector by 2023. Talking on the government’s thrust to increase the share of natural gas in the country’s energy basket to 15 per cent by 2030, Pradhan said, “Special thrust is being given to promote gas based economy under the guidance of Hon’ble Prime Minister Modi. We have a shining example of Gujarat state where natural gas share is 25% which is more than the world’s average of around 23%.I am happy to inform you that as we speak, an estimated investment of 60 billion US dollars is lined up in building gas pipelines, terminals, and City Gas infrastructure that are in different stages of implementation.” Talking about energy sustainability, Pradhan stressed that the new National Biofuel policy will ensure an integrated approach to produce bio-fuels from various types of agriculture residue and municipal solid waste. Pradhan added that entrepreneurs who are currently undertaking projects to produce compressed biogas from bio-waste under the government’s Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) initiative are experiencing difficulties in accessing bank finance. “These private entrepreneurs are experiencing some difficulties in access to bank finance for setting up CBG plants. I request Hon’ble Finance Minister to look into this challenge,” Pradhan said. He added that the government has targeted to establish 5000 compressed bio-gas plants under the SATAT initiative. Pradhan highlighted that International Energy Agency (IEA) in its latest report said during the period 2015 to 2018, investments in the energy sector in India recorded the second highest growth in the world. The growing presence of global oil and gas majors like Saudi Aramco, ADNOC, BP, Shell, Total, Rosneft and ExxonMobil in India is a testimony to the faith and confidence of global investors India’s growth story, he said.
Assam: OIL’s gas pipeline likely to be catastrophic for Maguri beel
Proposed construction of a gas pipeline of Oil India Limited (OIL) beneath the Maguri Motapung Beel near the Dibru Soikhowa national park in eastern Assam’s Tinsukia district has shocked the wildlife lovers as well as the conservationists. While the OIL had already constructed an oil pipeline over the 1,000 hectare wetland, the proposed construction of the second gas pipeline has concerned the conservationists as well as the local people. Sources said that OIL had already allotted the works related to setting up of the gas pipeline to a construction firm based in Kolkata, which in turn had engaged some local individuals and organizations by allotting sub contract of the project. What has concerned the local people is the fact that there was no public hearing organized before taking up the construction for the second pipeline to carry gas, which will be from Baghjan to Madhuban in Duliajan. Maguri-Motapung wetland, which is a part of Lohit River and part Dibru Saikhowa National Park and Biosphere Reserve are in the downstream of these pipelines and if any leak occurs in these pipelines crude oil will be spread over immediately in the whole area threatening the rich bio-diversity. Apart from the Maguri Motapung wetland, any probable disaster and oil spill would also impact the Lohit River, which has one of the best habitats of Gangetic River dolphins (Platanista gangetica gangetica). The site inspection report submitted by the standing committee of the National Board for Wildlife in 2013 also slammed the OIL for violating a Supreme Court guideline that identifies 10 km radius of any protected area as ecologically sensitive zone (ESZ) and hence bars such activities. The Board also criticized the oil major saying that the OIL did had carried out construction of the pipeline much before approaching the Supreme Court and National Board for Wildlife and even before obtaining their environmental clearance for the project. The board in its report strongly disapproved the project and said that there are specific risks involved in aligning a crude oil and gas pipeline beneath this wetland, which is very rich ecologically and sustains the livelihoods of a large number of people.
USD 60 bn investment coming in gas infrastructure: Pradhan
India is investing over USD 60 billion in developing natural supply and distribution infrastructure as it chases the target of more than doubling the share of natural gas in its energy base to 15 per cent by 2030, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Sunday. Natural gas currently constitutes 6.2 per cent of all energy consumption in the country. Stating that the government has laid emphasis on developing a gas-based economy, he said natural gas is gradually becoming a bridging fuel for low carbon economy in India. The government is giving special impetus to develop gas infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country connecting north to south and east to west parts of India, he said. “I am happy to inform you that as we speak, an estimated investment of 60 billion US dollars is underway in building gas pipeline and terminal infrastructure that are nearing or in advanced stages of completion,” he said in his opening remarks at the third International Think Tank Meeting (ITT) here. City gas distribution network will soon cover 70 per cent of India’s population, he said. “Our government is exploring strategic partnerships for overall development of oil & gas sector. The role of private sector – both domestic and from abroad, for bringing in investments with necessary innovations for future energy landscape in the country, will remain crucial”. CEOs of energy firms at the meeting stated that India will continue to increase consumption of fossil fuels in its energy mix, and there is an urgent need for an integrated energy policy cutting across all forms of energy. Pradhan said energy is integral to achieving the target of early doubling the size of Indian economy to USD 5 trillion by 2024. Talking of key challenges confronting the energy sector, he said: “The foremost challenge of our time is the Energy Trilemma. It is about providing – sustainably, securely, and affordably-sufficient energy to our growing population”. Secondly, in recent times, significant uncertainty and challenge were witnessed in the global energy markets. “We have seen the most disruptive developments. US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, attacks on Saudi oil processing units, volatile conditions in Strait of Hormuz, unrest in the Middle-East, and US-China trade war, to name a few,” he said. “These developments have an enormous impact on India’s energy security and also on our economic, budgetary and investment dimensions,” he said, adding India’s import dependency on crude oil and LNG continues to rise unabated. Import dependence is now over 84 per cent for crude and 45 per cent for natural gas. “Going forward, it is expected to increase further. Such excessive import dependency does make us vulnerable to external developments more than ever before,” he said. “The emerging era is going to be complex as each country will search for an optimal energy mix, without causing serious disruptions to their overall economic growth”. Indian companies have to develop a more strategic mindset by deploying latest technologies, Pradhan said, adding India will continue to depend on hydrocarbon and rely on clean and more efficient technologies, alongside robust producer-consumer relations as trade volumes grow. “I am very clear that no single form of energy can meet the growing energy demand in India given India’s development imperative that aims to ensure energy justice to all. Mixing all exploitable energy sources is the only feasible way forward in our context,” he said. “We need a balanced and realistic approach to develop a sustainable energy future”.