Davos:
Any further sanctions on Russia will not have any impact on India's crude oil needs and global prices should remain stable in the range of $75 to $80 per barrel as all sanction fears have already been taken into account, Arvinder Singh said Sahney, chairman of the Indian oil sector. Thursday.
Speaking to PTI here at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, he also said that there are several energy sources that can be tapped to meet India's energy needs in case of any eventuality.
When asked about Indian participation at Davos, Mr Sahney said it is great to see India having such a large presence here.
“It helps because we can meet so many global companies here in one place. We can exchange ideas with all of them, and that is good for the company and the economy as a whole,” he added.
On Donald Trump's second US presidency and its impact on India, he said it should be positive for the energy sector because “he has emphasized that we need to produce more energy and we are not averse to more energy sources. It is always better to have more and more energy sources”.
India imports nearly 87 percent of its crude oil and if the country gets more than one source, it would be better, he said.
Fearing that Trump could impose more sanctions on Russia if the war does not stop, he said this would not have a major impact.
“Before the war in Ukraine started, India got less than 2 percent oil from Russia. After the war started and Russia was no longer allowed to sell to Europe and so on, we started getting more out of Russia.
“If that drops due to sanctions, we have other sources to compensate for that. We have not abandoned our other sources, whether they are in the Gulf, OPEC, OPEC-plus, the US, Guyana or Brazil,” he added.
Moreover, he said, there are new non-OPEC countries and there is no shortage of crude oil.
“What price we will get, what the quantity would be and how the transportation will be done, we will investigate all that, but I can assure you that there will not be any impact on the availability or the energy security of the country,” said the IOC chief.
On the impact this could have on global crude oil prices, Mr Sahney said there should not be much effect on global prices.
When the sanctions were first imposed, prices had risen to $83 per barrel, but these have slowly fallen over the past five to seven days and are now around $79, he explained.
“All concerns had already been taken into account… and my personal estimate is that the amount will be between $75 and $80,” he said.
On budget expectations, he said the support the government needs for the energy sector is already there, and there is no further specific demand at the moment. “Whatever specific support we need, we are already getting it, and we don't think there would be anything negative for us in the budget,” he noted.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)