INDIA EFFECTIVELY
REGISTERS ITS PRESENCE IN THE WPC FORUM
As the 17th World Petroleum
Congress got underway in Rio de Janeiro, Shri Ram Naik, Minister
of Petroleum and Natural Gas held several meetings with his counterparts
from other countries. The meetings were successful and are expected
to prove beneficial to the cause of India’s endeavour to achieve
maximum possible oil security both by enhancing the domestic production
as well as acquiring equity abroad. During his meeting with Dr
Rilwanu Lukman, President OPEC & Minister of Petroleum, Nigeria
and Dr Alvaro Silva Calderon, Secretary General OPEC Shri Naik
called for affordable price mechanism, say about USD 22-23 per
barrel and some mechanisms for protecting developing countries
against price fluctuations, etc. He emphasised that the Venezuelan
agreement with two neighbouring countries for crude oil supplies
with some beneficial conditions should be spread to other OPEC
countries as well. The need to resolve problems connected with
differential prices charged for different regions by some OPEC
members were touched upon. It was mentioned by Dr Calderon that
supplies were sufficient and barring psychological factors or
warlike situation prices would be comfortable.
Shri Naik further had discussions
with Mr. Einaar Steensaes, Minister for Petroleum and Energy,
Norway about the present status of cooperation. It was
decided that the Joint Working Group Meeting would be held in
October 2002 at New Delhi.
Shri Naik had also meetings with
several other dignitaries which includes Mr, R.D. Ramirez Carreno,
Minister of Energy and Mines from Venezuela. In these meetings
the progress of the ongoing bilateral efforts was discussed, the
hurdles being faced by both the sides in the progress identified
and removed. Very fruitful discussions were held on matters of
mutual concern like acquisition of equity oil, cooperation between
the National Oil Companies, the sourcing of crude oil, technological
partnerships and cooperation in services sector, both in India
and in third countries. The other dignitaries also include Dr
Wang Tao, Head of National committee to the WPC, from China, and
Mr R.B. Arcuri, Secretary Production Development, Brazil called
upon the Minister. Executives from leading hydrocarbon companies
like Aramco of Saudi Arabia, Total Fina Elf, and Schlumberger,
discussed the intensification of existing linkages and deepening
of commercial cooperation.
The Indian hydrocarbon sector also
received its best exposure ever at the Congress. Following Shri
Ram Naik,s address from the chair at the Plenary at which the
Norwegian Minister for Petroleum and Energy, Mr Einaar Steensaes
was one of the keynote speakers, Mr. Ramchandran, Chairman IOC,
co-chaired a session on "Natural Gas – Clean Energy Serving
Society for Half a Century". At this session senior executives
of firms from Canada, Algeria, China & Brazil presented papers
to a large audience. Besides this as many as four papers were
presented from India. The Director General of Hydrocarbons, Dr
Avinash Chandra, presented a paper, on new hydrocarbon discoveries
in India. Shri. H P Chandna, Director (Planning) GAIL presented
a paper on the subject of "Import of Natural Gas to India". A
paper on "System Integration for Strategic Growth of Petroleum
E & P Industry" was presented by Shri J.P.N.Giri of ONGC.
Mr Shyamsundar of Petronet LNG Ltd presented a paper on LNG import
in India. GAIL & HPCL, were short listed for excellence awards
by the WPC committee.
The India Pavilion at the WPC continued
to be the major center of attraction at the WPC to which the number
of visitors exceeded 3000. "Excelente, Lindo"
(Excellent, beautiful) was the observation of Ms. Janice
D.C. Kneipp of Petrobras, while Mr. Nubia Ferreira commented "Otimo"
(Great). Most of the visitors had the same observation
about the pavilion.
The result has been that, perhaps
for the first time the presence of India has been projected so
effectively at any world forum of the hydrocarbon industry. The
far-reaching transformations taking place in the Indian economy
and the hydrocarbon sector in particular received wide publicity,
the beneficial results of which would certainly emerge in the
years to come.
