The Indian state of Tamil Nadu has seen its heaviest rainfall in over a century, driving thousands from their homes, shutting auto factories and paralyzing the airport in the state Continue Reading
The capitals of the world’s two most populous nations, China and India, were blanketed in hazardous, choking smog on Monday as climate change talks began in Paris , where leaders Continue Reading
A driver waits in a taxi for his turn to fill up his tank with diesel at a fuel station in Kolkata in this file photo taken on June 14, 2012. – China’s fuel usage tends to gather headlines as an indicator of the strength of global crude oil demand, and while this has been justified, the real growth action is happening over the Himalayas in India. India’s total demand for oil products is about one one-third of that in China, but the South Asian nation is powering up as China’s growth moderates. This isn’t entirely unexpected given that the slowdown in China’s economic growth is well known, as is the rotation toward a more service- and consumer-oriented economy from one reliant on heavy industry. India’s rapid gains in fuel consumption have seen it overtake Japan to become Asia’s second-largest crude oil importer behind China, and this growth trend […]
India’s fuel demand touched a five-month high in October as demand for vehicles ahead of the festive season led to a surge in the consumption of diesel and gasoline. Oil demand during the month shot up 17 percent to 15.2 million metric tons from a year earlier, the highest since May, according to data published by the oil ministry’s Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell . Diesel use rose 16 percent to 6.34 million tons, while gasoline consumption increased 14 percent to 1.85 million tons. With the onset of the festival season, passenger car sales jumped 22 percent in October, while industrial production rose 3.6 percent in September from a year earlier. Asia’s third-largest economy can grow at a pace of 8 percent to 10 percent in the coming years, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Nov. 14. Diesel demand, which comprises about 42 percent of India’s fossil-fuel consumption, was […]
India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp. EQONGC -0.33 % is in talks with Iranian state company Pars Oil and Gas Co. to return to a $10 billion gas project that it abandoned because of American pressure, a top official in Tehran said Wednesday. The Indian company, known as ONGC, approached the Iranians last week during an energy conference in Tehran, said Ali-Akbar Shabanpour, the managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Co., in an interview. ONGC is interested in returning to Farzad B, a giant natural gas concession in the Persian Gulf overseen by Mr. Shabanpour’s company. ONGC discovered gas in the field in 2008, but left the project after 2010 as the U.S. pressured countries to quit doing business with Iran because of its nuclear program. “They came to us” to discuss reviving the deal, Mr. Shabanpour said. "We will get the history and documentation of the project” […]
Labourers work inside a coal ball factory in Kolkata November 4, 2010. India’s plan to raise as much as $3.3 billion from selling a 10 percent stake in Coal India Ltd could be thrown off course by global investment banks under pressure from environmental groups to steer clear of the share sale. Several senior executives at foreign investment banks in Mumbai said ‘green’ concerns had clouded Coal India since its listing five years ago, and few were keen to take on a deal that could tarnish their public image. The pressure in a country where economic growth frequently trumps environmental concerns comes at a convenient time for banks. Many operating in India are under pressure to be more selective when it comes to roles that are heavy on staff but light on returns. The government pays a fee of just 1 rupee ($0.015). Banks’ reluctance, say people directly involved […]
Indian refiners with outstanding dues for the import of crude oil from Iran are set to make their second tranche of payments, pegged at the rupee equivalent of $700 million, on Tuesday, two oil industry sources said Monday. The payments by Essar Oil and Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd, two of India’s biggest importers of Iranian oil, would be similar to the amounts they paid in the first tranche on September 30, sources said. Essar Oil paid $335 million in its first instalment, one source said. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control granted approval in September for Indian refineries to pay $1.4 billion of the $6.5 billion they owed in past oil dues to Iran. The second tranche of payments is being made to the government in Indian rupees and the Reserve Bank of India will then arrange for its onward remittance to Iran, one source said. […]
Indian Oil Corp. is seeking to build a $3 billion petrochemicals plant in Iran, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. The plan hinges on assurances from Iran that the 1 million-ton-a-year project will have access to cheap natural gas as feedstock, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. A company spokesman didn’t respond to requests for comment by phone, text message and e-mail. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is eyeing energy and infrastructure investments totaling billions of dollars in Iran, including upstream gas production and port developments. India has sought to secure ties with Iran and ensure access to its abundant hydrocarbons as years of sanctions on the Persian Gulf nation may be nearing an end. Economic and financial restrictions on Iran, once the second-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, left it in need of […]
Anyone looking for the biggest immediate impact from Iran’s nuclear deal may want to turn away from the Middle East and toward the Indian subcontinent. With U.S. sanctions easing, India is racing to build a port in Iran that will get around the fact that its land access to energy-rich former Soviet republics in Central Asia has been blocked by China and its ally Pakistan. “We’re seeing the latest manifestation of the Great Game in Central Asia, and India is the new player,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “It’s had its eyes on Central Asia for a long time.” While the world focuses on what Iran’s opening means for Israel and Arab nations, the ramifications are also critical for Asia. Closer Iran-India ties would allow New Delhi’s leaders to secure cheaper energy imports to bolster economic growth and […]
Photo Residents of Maldahiyya basti, a colony of families in Varanasi, India, last year. Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times Demographers have known for some time that the number of people in India would surpass the number in China , the two most populous countries in the world. But they did not anticipate that the change would happen so quickly. The United Nations reported on Wednesday that India’s population will probably surpass China’s by 2022, not 2028, as the organization had forecast just two years ago. In its 2015 revision report , the population division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs said China’s population was now 1.38 billion, compared with 1.31 billion in India. But in seven years, the populations of both are expected to reach 1.4 billion. Thereafter, the report said, India’s population will grow for decades, to 1.5 billion in 2030 […]
