Petroleum Minister Pradhan co-chairs India-OPEC Institutional Dialogue

Minister of State (MoS) for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Dharmendra Pradhan visited Vienna, Austria to co-chair the second India-OPEC Institutional Dialogue at the OPEC headquarters. The meeting took place two days prior to the OPEC ministerial meeting that is scheduled from May 25, 2017.

Pradhan had a one-to-one meeting with the secretary general of OPEC, Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo and later he discussed bilateral issues of interest at a delegation level dialogue. He highlighted the importance of India – OPEC engagement and discussed on the effects of the production cut of 1.8 mbpd by OPEC and non-OPEC countries on the global oil market volatility.

Pradhan said that India had been and continued to be a reliable customer of OPEC countries, the only big economy where the demand for crude oil continues to rise each year. About 86 per cent of India’s import of crude oil, 70 per cent of natural gas, 95 per cent of LPG are from OPEC countries. He informed about the increasing refining capacity of India and future expansion plans. He also briefed OPEC about the expanding petrochemical sector in India.

He added that in today’s oversupplied market, it was important for producers to understand the perspective of consumers and the demand centres and the changes that have taken place in these demand centres. He stressed on the fact that while the security of supplies was important for consuming countries, the security of demand was equally important for producers. He highlighted the fact that the energy mix in India is undergoing major changes with renewables coming in a big way and pricing of solar energy coming down to 4 cents per unit.