New Delhi, April 16: India is exploring more ways to enhancing cooperation in oil and gas sector with Saudi Arabia.
This was discussed by Petroleum & Natural Gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan with Saudi leadership during his day-long visit to the on April 14 as a follow up of initiatives over various investment proposals in areas such as oil, gas, petrochemicals, exploration and production, officials said.
Pradhan shared details of various investment opportunities in India in downstream and upstream sectors and elaborated on the Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy (HELP) and Discovered Small Fields policy and invited the Saudi side to invest in Indian upstream sector, they said.
The Saudi side also provided details of investment opportunities for Indian companies in their country, they said adding both sides agreed to conclude discussions regarding concrete investment proposals in a time-bound manner.
Both the countries also agreed to appoint high level negotiation teams for various projects which would be periodically reviewed at Minister level.
Pradhan was accompanied by Indian Ambassador, CEOs of ONGC Limited, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited during his talks with Saudi leadership.
The Minister held meetings with Vice Minister for Petroleum HRH Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud and Health Minister & Chairman of Aramco Mr. Khalid Al Falih besides visiting the headquarters of SABIC (2nd largest petrochemical company of the World).
The visit comes close on heels of the successful visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the country.
Notably, Saudi Arabia supplying about 40 MMT of crude to India during 2015-16 — about 20 per cent of total crude imports – is the largest exporters of crude oil to India besides nearly three MMT of LPG, which is around 28% of our total LPG imports.
