Raj Kumar Dubey, HR Director, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, said that if the current global energy crisis continues, it may be difficult to avoid further increase in retail fuel prices. He presented three options before the policy makers, because there is continuous fluctuation in the crude oil market. Raj Kumar Dubey said that now we have two or three options open. The first is to increase the prices, either the prices should be increased at petrol pumps or the petroleum companies themselves will suffer losses and their losses will increase. Apart from this, he said that the third option is that the government should provide funds to compensate for the loss.
He told that the increase in global prices by 20% to 50% was initially considered to be temporary, but the way the situation is changing, I think this trend will continue. Pointing to the damage caused to the energy infrastructure, he said that it will take a lot of time to repair it. So looking at the current situation, if this situation continues, I think another increase in prices will be necessary. Although he did not say by how much the prices would increase, he said that if this situation continues for a long time, then the price increase is certain. On the issue of supply security, Dubey said that despite geo-political tension, diplomatic efforts and bringing diversity in the sources of supply have played an important role in protecting India from shocks.
Supply will have to be diversified
Due to the supply of more than 2 million barrels of oil being stopped in the Strait of Hormuz, he said that meeting this shortage is possible only by diversifying the sources of supply. BPCL and other Indian energy companies have significantly expanded their sources of supply. Dubey said that earlier we had only 20 supply centres. Now we have increased their number to 40, which also includes Russia. He said that in this respect, we are getting adequate security from these different sources of supply. He also said that fuel consumption in India has actually increased since the war started and yet we have been successful in maintaining the supply without any shortage.
He said that this crisis is also expected to accelerate the process of transition towards green energy in India. After more than 200 GW of solar energy capacity has been installed, he said that now this process will accelerate further, because considering the economic difficulties created by the huge foreign currency expenditure on oil imports, I am sure that we will move more rapidly towards the option of green energy. Rajkumar Dubey stressed on the Prime Minister’s target to increase the share of natural gas from the current 7-8% to 15% in the total energy mix and also give a huge boost to CBG. He described the initiative of 20% ethanol blending as “a very proactive step” and said that without it, there could have been 20% more shortage of petrol, which would also have affected the foreign exchange reserves.
Also read- Effect of boom in stock market, jump of Rs 74,111 crore in value of 6 big companies
Leave a Reply