(ET)
With the government’s aim of reducing India’s oil import dependence by 10 per cent by 2022 not picking up pace, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan today said his ministry is developing a new strategy to achieve the target. “Crude oil will continue to play a critical role at this stage of our development in meeting our energy requirements. Our government had set a road-map on reducing India’s crude oil import dependence by 10 per cent by 2022. We are developing a new strategy and initiatives to achieve this target,” he said, speaking at the World Sustainable Development Summit 2020 organised by TERI here.
India’s oil import dependence has steadily increased to 85 per cent during the April-December period of 2019-2020 as compared to 78.3 per cent in financial year 2014-2015, according to data sourced from the ministry. The increase in oil import dependence is mainly attributed to the decline in domestic oil production, which fell to 34.2 Million Tonne (MT) in 2018-2019 from 37.5 MT in 2014-2015. In the April-December period of the current financial year (2019-20), the country’s domestic crude oil production declined 6 per cent to 24.4 MT. Pradhan had in December last year said the oil ministry expects natural gas production to increase significantly from the current levels. However, domestic oil production is expected to plateau.
