New Delhi, July 6 (IANS) Highlighting the government’s achievements in the oil and gas sector, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Sunday said that “whether it was the period of the global Covid pandemic or global conflict, there has never been a shortage of petroleum products in India”.

“This has been possible due to the foresight of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he remarked.

He was referring to the geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, which peaked during the Israeli attack on Iran, during which shipping was disrupted and there were threats of closure of the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil and gas exports are shipped out from the Gulf region.

“Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, we have diversified our supplies in the past few years, and a large volume of our supplies do not come through the Strait of Hormuz now,” the minister had stated earlier.

India imports around 85 per cent of its crude oil requirement, and a surge in oil prices leads to an increase in its oil import bill and pushes up the rate of inflation, which hurts economic growth.

However, it has diversified its oil sources by increasing imports from Russia as well as the US and building resilience through strategic reserves.

Highlighting the infrastructure milestones in the oil and gas sector, Puri said that the country now has 23 modern operational refineries with a total capacity of 257 million metric tonnes per annum to produce petroleum products.

The minister also highlighted the ministry’s initiative in setting up storage facilities for strategic petroleum reserves, on which the country can fall back in times of emergency and which assume importance during times of geopolitical uncertainty.

The storage capacity includes 2.25 million metric tonnes (MMT) at Pudur, the Visakhapatnam facility has the capacity to store 1.33 MMT of crude oil, while Mangalore has a storage capacity of 1.5 MMT.

The Minister also underscored that India has achieved the target of 20 per cent ethanol blending with petrol ahead of schedule as part of the country’s drive to push green fuels.

E20 ethanol-blended petrol is now being made available to fuel vehicles at all the retail outlets of the public sector companies – Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum – nationwide.

The minister stated that India has achieved the target of 20 per cent ethanol blending in petrol in early 2025, which is six years ahead of the original deadline of 2030, reflecting the strong progress in the country’s journey towards cleaner fuels.

“This achievement not only reduces the country’s carbon emissions but also saves huge amounts of money. In the process, we have saved Rs 1 lakh crore upwards. Rs 1.5 lakh crore of foreign exchange because of the import bill, and we have given that to our farmers,” the minister said recently.

–IANS

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