India’s insatiable appetite for energy has opened up investment opportunities of up to $500 billion, as the country looks to raise refining capacity, boost domestic E&P activity, expand LNG infrastructure and embrace new forms of energy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Jan. 27.

Modi, inaugurating India Energy Week with a televised address, also said that while India would play a key role in the oil product export market in the coming years, the recently signed free trade deal between the EU and India would be mutually beneficial for all forms of trade, including energy.

“Today’s India is on board ‘reforms express’ and is working on reforms in all sectors. We are working on reforms for opening the domestic hydrocarbon industry. And for global collaboration, making it a transparent and investor-friendly environment,” Modi said.

“India is now moving forward from energy security to energy independence. We are developing an energy ecosystem that can meet India’s local demand and provide affordable refining and transportation solutions for the world with competitive exports,” he added.

He said that the energy sector is at the center of India’s growth and aspirations. “In this, $500 billion investment opportunity is there. So, my plea is to make in India, innovate in India, scale with India, and invest with India,” Modi added.

Modi said efforts were underway to raise India’s overall refining capacity to 300 million mt/year from the current 260 million mt/year, but did not provide an exact timeframe. That would allow Indian refiners to capture a bigger share of the global oil products export market.

“Today, we are one of the top five petroleum product exporters in the world and we are selling to more than 150 countries. This will be very useful for global markets in the future,” Modi said.

“Yesterday, India and the EU signed a very important free trade agreement. This is a remarkable example of cooperation between two of the world’s largest economies,” he added.

He said India’s E&P sector would see investments of up to $100 billion by the end of this decade.

“Exploration in India has been opened up considerably. Or a deep-water mission is an example of that. Our goal is to expand the scope of exploration to 1 million sq km. We have already awarded more than 170 blocks. The Andaman idea will be a big area of focus for us for upstream growth,” Modi said.

LNG infrastructure growth

On LNG, Modi said India’s demand was rising rapidly.

“We need to work on the entire LNG value chain. LNG transportation pipelines are being built, and related infrastructure is being strengthened, offering opportunities for investment on a large scale. The city gas distribution sector is also very attractive for investment,” Modi said.

Commenting on the global challenges, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told IEW that the pressures on the global energy system from geopolitical shifts and structural change have intensified even further, making it imperative for the global energy order to evolve in complex ways.

“Their share in global electricity generation has increased from around one-fifth to nearly one-third, supported by falling costs and policy momentum. Yet conventional energy continues to play a critical role. If investment in existing oil and gas production were to stop today, global oil output would decline by around eight percent annually over the next decade, equivalent to losing more than the combined annual production of Brazil and Norway each year,” Puri said.
Source: Platts