New Delhi, July 11 (IANS) Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday that India’s purchases of Russian crude oil had helped to bring down global energy prices to stable levels.

In an interview with a foreign news channel, Puri said, “Russia is one of the largest crude producers with over 9 million barrels/day. Imagine the chaos if this oil, amounting to about 10 per cent of the global oil supply of around 97 million, vanished from the market. It would have forced the world to reduce its consumption, and since the consumers would be chasing reduced supplies, the prices would’ve spiralled to over $120-130.”

“India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been a net positive contributor to global energy price stability, while at the same time we successfully navigated the trilemma of energy availability, affordability and sustainability,” the minister said.

He explained that Russian oil was never under global sanctions. “Sensible decision makers around the world were aware of the realities of global oil supply chains and how India was only helping the global markets by buying discounted oil under a price cap from wherever we could,” the minister said.

“Some commentators who do not have an understanding of the dynamics of energy markets pass unnecessary judgments on our policies,” he added.

The minister pointed out that India continues to provide clean cooking gas to 330 million households in the country at the lowest prices in the world, while it provides universal clean cooking to more than 103 million beneficiary families under the PM Ujjwala Scheme at just 0.4 dollars/kg or just 7-8 cents/day.

Meanwhile, the minister also said, in a statement on X, that India plans to explore and drill for oil and gas with a whole new momentum across 2.5 lakh sq km in Round 10 under the Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP).

He highlighted that India’s target is to increase the country’s exploration acreage to 0.5 million sq km by 2025 and 1.0 million sq km by 2030.

Being close to discovering a Guyana-scale oilfield in the Andaman Sea, India is in the midst of one of the most ambitious plans to enhance the efforts to drill for more and further enhance hydrocarbons exploration in the country, he added.

–IANS

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