New Delhi: India is set to see its dependence on oil imports grow to above 80 percent from the current 78.6 percent, the Union government told Parliament Thursday. This runs contrary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2015 call to action to cut India’s import dependence on oil by 10 per cent by 2022.
In a series of answers to the Lok Sabha Thursday, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameswar Teli provided information that showed that not only was India’s oil import dependence set to increase, but that the amount India spends on oil imports has almost doubled in the last three years, even as domestic oil production has been falling over the last five.
Modi had in March 2015 exhorted domestic oil companies to increase their production and had set a target of reducing India’s oil imports by 10 percentage points by 2022 to about 66-67 per cent, and by 50 percentage points by 2030.
“During FY 2022-23, the country’s oil and oil equivalent gas import dependency is 78.6 percent (provisional), which is expected to increase to above 80 percent by 2027-28,” Teli informed Parliament in a written answer.
This estimate, he added, is based on various assessments and assumptions of growth in consumption and domestic production.
While it was expected that India’s oil requirement would increase as the economy grew, the attempt so far has been to increase domestic production and also use other techniques such as the blending of ethanol with petrol to reduce the petrol — and hence oil — requirement.
“Government has adopted a five-pronged strategy comprising increasing domestic production of oil and gas, promoting energy efficiency and conservation measures, giving thrust on demand substitution, promoting biofuels and other alternate fuels/renewables, EV charging facilities and refinery process improvements for reducing the county’s oil dependence on imported crude oil,” Teli further said.
Data provided by Teli in another answer shows that India has failed in at least the first of these five prongs — increasing domestic production.
Where India produced 34.2 million metric tonnes (MMT) of crude oil in 2018-19, this has steadily fallen to 29.2 MMT in 2022-23. At the same time, the amount spent on oil imports has skyrocketed, in keeping with India’s increased demand and the rise in the price of oil.
A third answer by Teli showed that India spent $157.6 billion on oil imports in 2022-23, compared to $120.7 billion the previous year, and just $62.2 billion in the pandemic-hit year of 2020-21.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
Also Read: We did the math. Here’s what India needs to achieve E20 plan of blending petrol with ethanol