India seeks energy assets abroad

NEW DELHI, March 23 (UPI) -- India has said it will seek energy assets abroad to meet its needs.

The Hindu newspaper said Friday that among the areas India was looking for energy assets in terms of equity participation, production and exploration contracts are Central Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Junior Indian Foreign Minister Anand Sharma said the country's self-sufficiency in oil had fallen from 63 percent to 30 percent in 2000-01. Sharma was addressing an oil and gas conference.

"The situation is only likely to get worse in the future," Sharma said, adding that to meet the growing demand for energy, talks were underway to acquire oil assets in Bangladesh, Brazil, Kuwait, Myanmar, Sierra Leone, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Yemen.

Sharma said Indian oil companies had already committed more than $4.5 billion in 14 countries for this purpose. As far as domestic output is concerned, he added, it was likely to rise from 26 million tons to 52 million tons in 2011-12 and 80 million tons in 2024-25, but that crude oil self-sufficiency would be a mere 15 percent.

The availability of natural gas, Sharma said, is much lower than the demand.

"To meet the country's needs, efforts were being made to pursue gas pipeline projects both on the eastern and western land frontiers," Sharma said.

Once the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline is completed, Sharma explained, gas will be used for power and fertilizer projects in northern India.

"The proposed Myanmar-Bangladesh-India pipeline will not only bring gas, but may also carry Tripura gas to the rest of the country and gas from Bangladesh to the western region of the country."