India on its way to becoming global energy superpower: Hardeep Singh Puri

India is on its way to become a global energy superpower in terms of consumption and production, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said here on Monday.

Addressing the passing-out students of Pandit Deendayal Energy University virtually, Puri said though India had the resources, exploration and production of fossil fuel and gases "remain stagnant".

"You are entering your professional life at a time when India is well on its way to become a global energy superpower. India will be the energy superpower of the world by the time we will be a USD 10 trillion economy in 2030," said Puri in his virtual address.

"Global energy superpower means we will set the pace for global consumption, becoming a significant producer by way of exploration and production of different sources of energy," he added.

For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, energy is the priority area, mainly because 85 per cent of India's crude and 55 per cent gas requirement are met through imports, and there was a need to switch to green energy, the minister said.

"For many years, we allowed exploration and production to remain stagnant. Now, we have increased that. We had the resources, but we allowed ourselves to be import dependent," said the minister, adding that India's per capita fuel consumption is three times the global per capita consumption.

Puri said the PM has set a target of 20 per cent biofuel or ethanol blending by 2025, adding that 20 per cent blended fuel will be made available in small quantities from April 1, 2023.

India's liquified natural gas regasification capacity has gone up from 21 million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) in 2014 to 42 MMTPA now, while the aim was to increase the country's overall LNG regasification capacity to 62.5 MMTPA in the next few years, he said.

"India's refining capacity has increased from 214 MMTPA to 250 MMTPA, and we have set a target of reaching 400 MMTPA in the next few years. Similarly, we aim to increase the gas pipeline network from 18,500 kilometers to 32,000 kilometers in the next five years," the minister said.

On the occasion, PDEU president and industrialist Mukesh Ambani said India is not only poised for a strong economic recovery, but also better equipped to deal with any future wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It is an exciting new world in the midst of a fusion of two big revolutions, the clean energy revolution and the digital revolution. The combination of these two revolutions will change the very character of our lives," Ambani said.

"These two revolutions will fundamentally transform every activity in modern life and every sector of the economy, including agriculture, education, industry, transport and entertainment," he added.