Indian Petroleum Minister Meets with Counterparts at 5th OPEC

Indian Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri S. Jaipal Reddy held a series of bilateral meetings with with his counterparts from different countries at Vienna (Austria) on the sidelines of the 5th OPEC International Seminar.

The wide-ranging talks with his counterparts form Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Qatar were aimed at enhancing mutual cooperation in the oil & gas sector. The talks focused on sourcing more crude oil, LNG, LPG and promoting investments in hydrocarbon sector projects. The discussions focused on enhancing cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

During the bilateral meeting with Mr Rostam Ghasemi, Minister of Petroleum Iran, Minister raised the issue of the development of the South Pars Phase-12 by the OVL led consortium and sought more time for settling the contractual terms and conditions of the service contract between OVL and Iran Offshore Oil Company (IOOC). The Iranian Minister said that IOOC would be advised to resolve all pending issues and concerns at an early date.

Minister met Mr Ali al-Naimi; Minister of Petroleum & Mineral Resources, Saudi Arabia and asked for another 5 million tonnes per annum of crude oil from Saudi Arabia over and above the 32 million tonnes it had imported during 2011-12. India also asked for an additional 1.5 million tonnes of LPG during the current year. Saudi Arabia is India’s largest supplier of crude oil and LPG. Regarding SA Aramco and other companies investing in India’s petrochemical and downstream sector, Mr Naimi assured that this would be favorably examined and appropriate advice would be issued to its NOCs. Minister also invited Mr Naimi to attend the inaugural session of the Petrotech 2012 on 15 October 2012 at New Delhi.

Minister further met Mr Youcef Yousfi, Minister of Energy and Mines, Algeria. India asked for additional quantities of crude oil, and expressed interest in investing in Algeria’s upcoming LNG sector with the objective of some quantities of LNG being booked for India. GAIL is already in talks with Sonatrach for tying up LNG imports on annual basis. Minister expressed India’s interest in having long term LNG contracts with Algeria. The Algerian side informed of its emphasis on development of its fertilizer sector and said that Indian companies interested in Phosphatic fertilizers were welcome to approach the Algerian side for participation.

The Ministers of India and Qatar discussed matters of bilateral interest including larger supplies of crude oil. During 2011-12, India imported 6.41 million tonnes of crude oil from Qatar. Also, both sides discussed the long term LNG contract between PLL and RasGas for another 3.5 million tonnes of LNG including the need to settle the pricing issue at an early date. PLL has long term contract with RasGas for 7.5 million tonnes per annum.

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LNG World News Staff, June 15, 2012