More Stories

Informist, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025

 

MUMBAI – The gas shortage currently faced by priority sectors in the country will become history as starting from 2026, India will not have any shortage of reasonably priced gas, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said Friday.

 

Speaking at the curtain raiser of the India Energy Week, Puri said that India will continue buying crude oil from Russia only if it is available at good discounts or else we will import crude from elsewhere. "We used to buy less than 0.2% from Russia in February 2022, now we are buying 30%. If it's (Russian crude) available at good discounts, we will buy. If it's available elsewhere, we'll buy," Puri said. The country net imported 170 million tonnes of crude oil and petroleum products in Apr-Dec.

 

The third edition of the India Energy Week, to be held from Feb. 11-14 in New Delhi, will be the second-largest energy event in the world, Puri said. The event will feature over 700 exhibiting companies, representing more than 120 countries. There will be more than 95 conference sessions with over 500 speakers.

 

He said India has diversified its crude oil requirement to 30 countries from 27 earlier, with Argentina being the latest addition. Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd. recently bought 1 million barrels of crude from Argentina, Puri said. Despite the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies' voluntary production cuts, more and more crude is coming onto the market from non-OPEC countries. India started importing more oil from the Western Hemisphere, such as Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, Canada, and the US, Puri said. "... there's no shortage of crude oil in the world. It's only a question of how much is made available for commercial transactions," he said.

 

On US President Donald Trump's call to lower global energy prices, Puri said "for a country like India which is still 50?pendent on gas imports and even larger on oil, that's music to our ears." India is the third-largest consumer of energy in the world and imports 87% of its crude requirements.

 

India has advanced its target for achieving the ethanol blending program by five years and will reach the target by February 2025. "... this requires about 11 billion litres of biofuel. How much more do we take, it remains to be seen," Puri said. 

 

India's cooking gas connections touched 330 million from 140 million in 2014, he said.  End

 

Reported by Ashutosh Pati and Sandeep Sinha

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

 

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt Ltd.

 

Informist Media Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

 

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2025. All rights reserved.