Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep S. Puri attends Roundtable discussion in Houston, Texas

Texas: Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri Hardeep S. Puri, while addressing a roundtable on “Opportunities in the India-US Strategic Partnership” at Houston, Texas, remarked that 25% of global energy demand growth in the next 2 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 had taken many steps towards low carbon development, including through emerging fuels like hydrogen and biofuels. He emphasized that despite the current challenging energy environment, India’s commitment to energy transitions and its climate mitigation goals is not going to diminish.

Shri Hardeep S. 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, and Tellurian to name a few. Indian Energy PSUs also attended the event.

Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas stated that India was undertaking major reforms to rationalize and incentivize Exploration & Production by reducing the no-go areas by 99% opening up approx. 1 million sq km, making good quality geological data available through the National Depository Registry, etc.

As a gesture of commitment of GOI to the E & P sector, the special Coal-bed Methane (CBM) round & 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, Shri Hardeep Puri stated that the immense potential between the two countries in areas of biofuels, gas-based economy, green hydrogen, petrochemicals & 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.