Guwahati (Assam) [India], February 26 : India's crude oil consumption will touch the mark of six and a half to seven barrels a day in short to medium term, said Hardeep Singh Puri, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Advantage Assam 2.0, an investor summit organised by the state government, Puri said, "In the 3 and a half years of my being associated with this ministry, our crude oil consumption has gone up from 5 million barrels a day to 5 and a half million barrels. My speaking notes would say this will go upto 6 and a half 7 million a day not in the long future in the short to medium term Crude oil consumption will go up 20%, maybe more and along with that, you add all the other developments... Our target for 20% biofuel blending was 2026."
The minister further highlighted the relation between energy consumption and growth and added, "Any country, I don't mean just India, will be assessed in terms of its economic performance by its energy utilisation. I used to say till some months ago that energy is the backbone of the economy or the lifeline of an economy."
Furthermore, the minister added, " PM has put in place an ecosystem, and we have reached it... Today, any country that can achieve a biofuel blending target 6 years in advance means something is going good right there...India is currently spending something in the vicinity of 150 billion dollars on imports of different forms of energy."
Earlier, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma praised the efforts of the Union Petroleum Ministry and said, "In the last Advantage Assam Summit, the Ministry of Petroleum also announced that they will bring a gas grid from Barauni to Numaligarh, again a 1600 km gas grid."
He further added, "Because of your (Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri) leadership today, Oil India Limited and Numaligarh Refinery Limited are working jointly with the Government of Assam with a huge vision."
He said Numaligarh is going to complete its refinery with 9 million metric tonnes by 2025 and along with that, the refinery, which shall convert bamboo to ethanol, will also be ready soon.
"Yesterday, in my address before the PM, I said how the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has decided to lay down a 1600 km pipeline from Paradip to Numaligarh so that we can enhance the capacity of the refinery... We still remember that there was a time when there was an agitation in Assam; we said that we would not allow our crude to go out. But today, you have changed the narrative completely."
Assam CM further added, "We are bringing crude from Paradip through the gas line you have installed for the people of Assam and today Numaligarh is expanding from 3 million metric tonnes to 9 million metric tonnes, and all the 6 million metric tonnes are coming from Paradip."
On the second day of the Assam Advantage 2.0, the state has attracted an investment of nearly Rs 2 lakh crores so far, as per the state minister Ranjit Kumar Dass. The summit has already marked a major milestone in attracting investments.
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