India will do all that is required to ensure energy security, affordability: Puri

JAIPUR: Reacting to the decision of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day, Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Friday said India will do all that is required to ensure its energy security and affordability.
He said if required, India will go for diversification of energy sources.
"This is their (OPEC's) sovereign right what they want to do but equally it is my job to point out that all actions have consequences, intended or unintended. India will be able to navigate through the situation with confidence," the petroleum and natural gas minister said at the GEO India 2022 conference here.
"We will not allow any shortages to come in. The government will do all that is required to ensure energy security and affordability," he told reporters.
Puri said as per the estimates of the sector, consumption of fuel will increase and 25 per cent of the global demand in next 20 years will be from India.
Therefore, he said, the prime minister took the decision to open up exploration and production in the sector.
"We have diversified the sources from where we source energy and will diversify it further," he said.
The minister, who was in Jaipur to inaugurate the GEO India 2022 conference, said going by the import statistics of the last six months, Saudi Arabia was the number one supplier and then Iraq became the second largest supplier but India has the autonomy to take its decisions. "We will take our decisions and we will not hesitate to diversify."
On October 5, the OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting countries decided to sharply cut production to support sagging oil prices, a move that could deal the global economy a heavy blow. It was decided to cut oil production by 2 million barrels per day starting in November.
The minister also said fuel prices have increased globally and it is the effort of the central government not to pass on this increase to the consumers.
He said the petroleum sector was deregulated during the Congress regime in 2010 and now the central government can slash excise duty on fuel to provide relief from increasing prices. He said that the Centre cut excise duty twice in November 2021 and May 2022.
Puri also said the work of laying gas pipelines is going on at a fast pace. He said the length of gas pipelines was 14,000 km in 2014 which is now more than 22,000 km and the target is to increase it to 33,500 km.