Oil & gas prices not gone up since Apr 22 despite Russia-Ukraine issue: Hardeep Singh Puri
“Despite turbulence, we have not allowed prices of oil and gas to go up; prices have not gone up since April 2022 despite the Russia-Ukraine issue,” said Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri while talking at a summit organized by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce North India Council (IACC-NIC). He said, “On two occasions, November 2021 and May 2022, PM decided to reduce excise duty; non-BJP ruled states did not reduce and sell at higher prices; this is, what I call, inherent hypocrisy in Indian energy discourse.”
He further said, “Any collaboration with the US would require a considerable focus on clean energy. India and the US are in the process of carving out a new partnership which will not only add strength and intensify existing areas of cooperation but also carve out new areas.”
Commenting on India’s preparedness to achieve green energy targets before the set time, the Minister said, “Refineries will make petrochemicals and green hydrogen; at this time, the refining capacity is around 250 million metric tonnes per annum, we want to increase it to 400 or 450 million metric tonnes per annum. We are looking at a large number of 20 million metric tonnes per annum refineries, and not the bigger ones.”
He adds, “We have reached 10 percent blending in June 2022, and our saving on import bill was Rs 41,000 crore, benefiting farmers also. We will achieve the target of 20 percent blending by 2025, much before the initial target of 2030. In bio-fuel India is a success story, we are using the presidency in G-20 for the bio-fuel alliance.”
“Our domestic gas production went up by 18%, normal gas cylinder distribution went up to 31 crore, PNG connections went up from 25.4 lakh to 1.05 crore; this happened due to well-thought-out policy,” the Minister said.
