Houston (US): Addressing a roundtable on "Opportunities in the India-US Strategic Partnership" at Houston, Texas, Union Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri remarked that 25 percent of the global energy demand growth in the next two decades is going to emanate out of India. He noted that 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.
India has taken several steps towards lowering carbon emissions, including through emerging fuels like hydrogen and bio-fuels. 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" organised by US-India Strategic Partnership Forum. The roundtable brought together over 60 participants from 35 companies, including Senior leadership of energy majors like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Chieniere, Lanzatech, Honeywell, BakerHughes, Emerson, Tellurian to name a few. Indian Energy PSUs also attended the event.
The Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas stated that India was undertaking major reforms to rationalise and incentivise Exploration & Production by reducing the no-go areas by 99 percent, opening up approximately 1 million sq kms, making good quality geological data available through the National Depository Registry etc.
As a gesture of commitment of the Central government to the E&P 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 square lakh km, after opening up over 1 million square 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.
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