With an economy that is projected to grow at a rate of 8-9 percent over the next two decades, meeting its rapidly increasing demand for energy is one of the biggest challenges India is facing today. Though diversification of oil and gas supply base is the key to the promotion of India’s energy security, the success rate is lower than what was expected.
The oil demand surges combined with refinery sector boom has sent India’s oil demand soaring and has resulted in voluminous crude imports, particularly from the Gulf region. Since India is situated far from the non Gulf producing countries and by and large Indian refineries are technically designed to process Gulf crude, dependence on the Gulf region has increased. India thus has to live with the fact that it will continue to be dependent mainly on the Gulf for meeting its energy requirements. Hence, securing long term energy supply from the Gulf which fulfills about 65% of its energy needs is a primary concern for India to ensure its energy security.
For the Gulf countries, India provides an assured market for crude oil and petroleum products and abundant investment opportunities in the downstream sector.
It is in this background that CII has done a study on “India’s Energy Cooperation with the Gulf Countries: Emerging Business Opportunities and Growing Concerns”. We have come out with some comprehensive recommendations in this study towards enhancing India-Gulf Energy Cooperation and thereby promoting business opportunities, which we are hopeful, would be considered by all the important policy stakeholders.