India’s state-run refiner Hindustan sees more energy stability under Biden
New Delhi — The election of Joe Biden as US president should bring more stability to energy, and will promote crude oil and LNG trade between India and the US, the chairman of India’s third-biggest state-run refiner Hindustan Oil Corp. told S&P Global Platts on Nov. 8.
The nature of the verdict will propel the policy framework towards more stability as far as energy is concerned,” M.K. Surana said.
India is the world’s third biggest energy consumer, and state-owned gas utility major GAIL regularly sources LNG from the US while state-run refiners buy crude from the US when the price turns competitive against other sources.
“India and US partnership has grown in recent times,” Surana said. “This partnership can only grow further with the US turning an exporter of crude oil and LNG, and also because India being the market with the largest potential for both fossil and non-fossil energy sources.”
BP recently reiterated it was planning to play a much bigger role across India ‘s energy transition, including in renewables .
“India is set to nearly double its energy consumption over the long term,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the recent India Energy Forum by CERAWeek. “Our energy sector will be growth-centric, industry friendly and environment-conscious.”
Modi said plans are in place to grow the country’s refining capacity from about 250 million mt/year currently to 400 million mt/year by 2025.
Terming Biden’s victory “spectacular,” Modi said in a Nov. 8 tweet: “As the VP, your contribution to strengthening Indo-US relations was critical and invaluable. I look forward to working closely together once again to take India-US relations to greater heights.”
