India and Saudi Arabia discuss investments in oil and petrochemical projects

India’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan met in Riyadh with Saudi Arabia’s Vice Minister for Petroleum HRH Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud and Health Minister & Chairman of Aramco, Khalid Al Falih.

The visit came close on heels of the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Saudi Arabia on April 2-3, 2016. During the visit of the Prime Minister, ways to enhancing cooperation in oil and gas sector was one of the key issues discussed with the Saudi leadership. The Petroleum Minister’s visit was a follow up to take forward the discussions regarding various investment proposals in areas like oil, gas, petrochemicals, exploration and production.

Pradhan shared details of various investment opportunities in India in downstream and upstream sectors. He also elaborated on the Hydrocarbon Exploration Licensing Policy (HELP) and Discovered Small Fields policy and invited the Saudi side to invest in Indian upstream sector. The Saudi side also provided details of investment opportunities for Indian companies in their country. Both sides agreed to conclude discussions regarding concrete investment proposals in a time-bound manner. They also agreed to appoint high level negotiation teams for various projects which would be periodically reviewed at minister level. Pradhan was accompanied by Ambassador of India, CEOs of ONGC, Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum. He later made a visit to the headquarters of SABIC, the second largest petrochemical company globally. It has a research centre in Bangalore and is looking to further expand its presence in India.

Saudi Arabia has been the largest supplier of crude oil to India. It supplied about 40 MMT of crude to India during 2015-16, accounting for about 20% of total crude imports. India also imported about 3 MMT of LPG which is around 28% of the country’s total LPG imports.