India’s oil and natural could expect investment up to $206 billion in the next eight to ten years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is addressing the top global executives at the India Energy Forum by CERA Week today. In this event, it is expected that Modi would further induce the companies to encourage the country’s core self-reliant measures. Especially, now as the country’s fuel market is gradually recovering from the pandemic-driven decline.

The three-day-long forum is expecting the participation of Dan Brouillette (US Secretary of Energy), Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber (CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company), and Prince Abdulaziz (Minister of Energy of Saudi Arabia).

“The importance of such a global meet comes when you realize that the country is set to see such large investment this decade. This includes investments to the tune of $67 billion in gas infrastructure -- LNG capacity increase, pipelines, and CGD networks. Global players like Total, Exxon Mobil, and Shell have shown their interests in this field,” states a government official.

He further pointed out that Reliance-BP, ONGC, and Oil India, exploration and production scenario is expected to see an investment of close to $59 billion. However, on the other hand, the downstream segment including marketing, refinery expansion, and new refinery plans such as Paradip, Vizag, Barmer is expected to witness another $80 billion investment in the sector.

Furthermore, the virtual event would also have other participants form industry bigwigs such as Bernard Looney (CEO BP Plc, UK); Igor Sechin (Chairman, Rosneft, Russia); Patrick Pouyanne (Chairman & CEO, Total S.A., France); Olivier Le Peuch (CEO, Schlumberger, USA); Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo (Secretary-General, Opec) and Mukesh Ambani (Chairman & MD, Reliance Industries).

Presently, India's fuel sales are getting back on track after suffering the demand contraction that occurred due to the pandemic. In October 2020, the Petrol demand has raised by 1.5 percent, Diesel by 8.79 percent and LPG by 6.93 percent in comparison with October 1-15 period of 2019. Also, the ATF demand is 57 percent short of last year which indicates the recovery rate at 43 percent. According to estimates, the total primary energy demand across the globe would raise at less than one percent per annum till 2040. Thus, the growth would be mainly supported bu India and other Asia while India's energy demand is expected to grow by three percent a year until 2040.

“The share of renewable in electricity capacity has significantly gone up now to 22 percent from around 10 percent in 2014-15. The ethanol blending percentage has risen from 0.67 percent in 2012-13 to now close to six percent. In addition, we have launched schemes like Ujjwala giving access to clean energy for common man, BS-VI fuel was launched and also Hydrogen-CNG also became a part of our fuel basket,” the official stated.