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Iran Ready to Export Natural Gas to India

After India left the IP Gas Pipeline project, a consortium of some Indian companies headed by South Asia Gas Enterprise Pvt. Ltd. (SAGE) expressed willingness to import Iran’s natural gas, Kameli told SHANA on Saturday. He went on to say that the company is waiting for the termination of anti-Iran sanctions to fund the construction of a 3000 km underwater (deep-sea) pipeline. The history of border conflicts between India and Pakistan made the Indian side opt for using a totally independent pipeline for importing gas from Iran, Kameli added. For years there has been talk of an India-Iran-Oman energy triangle, whereby an under-sea natural gas pipeline would connect Oman and India. As India’s economy grows, demand for gas will continue to exceed supply from domestic sources and imported gas will play an important role in bridging the demand-supply gap in the market. At first, India was supposed to import […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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India quenches gasoline thirst with unusually high imports, shrinking exports

India’s oil product exports plunged nearly 30% to six-year lows in June as refiners diverted diesel to the domestic market to meet surging summer demand, while growing preference for petrol-driven vehicles supported gasoline consumption and triggered unusually high imports of the fuel. The sharp drop in exports occurred despite record runs at state-run and private refiners. "India’s product exports fell despite record refinery runs due to strong domestic demand. Burgeoning gasoline demand has forced Indian refineries to import gasoline. We expect gasoline demand to remain strong and hence imports to continue," said Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at Energy Aspects. India has imported 488,000 mt of gasoline in the first half of 2015, compared with just 61,000 mt in the same period the previous year, data released recently by the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell showed. Article continues below… The Platts Global Energy Awards is a competitive awards program […]

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Is it end of the line for South Asia’s ship graveyards?

Workers carry a rope line to fasten a decommissioned ship at the Alang shipyard in Gujarat, India, in this March 27, 2015 file photo. In the world’s biggest ship recycling center of Alang on India’s Arabian Sea coast, workers with blow torches cut segments of steel stripped from the rusting hull of a towering cargo ship, sold for scrap by its Japanese owner. But in this town – located in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat – more than half of the ship-breaking yards have shut in the past two years and the future of the trade in India and neighbors Bangladesh and Pakistan is bleak. The industry has been hit by a flood of cheap Chinese steel and new European Union environmental rules due later this year threaten to push business to more modern yards in places like China and Turkey – in turn devastating local […]

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Drought may hit rural Indian economy, aggravating poverty

MATHURA, India India’s farm economy could contract this fiscal year for the first time in over a decade because of drought, threatening Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s drive to lift millions in the countryside out of poverty and bolster his party’s support. Roughly half of India’s farmland lacks irrigation and relies on monsoon rain, but this year’s rainfall is officially forecast to be only 88 percent of the long-term average and, for the first time in nearly three decades, farmers face a second straight year of drought or drought-like conditions. That comes on top of a crash in commodity prices, unseasonable rain earlier this year and delayed sowing late last year because of scanty monsoon rain. "Farmers are already reeling under heavy losses … and now they don’t have money to irrigate their fields or use an optimum level of inputs like fertilizer," said Ashok Gulati, an agricultural economist who […]

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Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum to Buy Crude from Iraq

Hindustan Petroleum Corp. said it a statement it has been in touch with Somo, the oil-marketing company of the Iraq government, to seek an allocation of 2 million barrels of crude oil in the coming month. The procurement comes after India’s oil ministry asked Hindustan Petroleum and Indian Oil to purchase 4 million barrels of Basra light crude oil on behalf of Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves, Hindustan Petroleum Corp. said in a filing to stock exchanges Thursday. Indian Oil Corp. separately said it acted as a facilitator for the import of crude from Iraq on behalf of the Indian government. The crude is meant for the strategic reserves, the company said in a filing to stock exchanges. India, the world’s fourth-largest petroleum consumer, is setting up three centers at Vishakhapatnam, Mangalore, and Padur, in the southern part of India, to store crude to meet its needs in times of […]

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Coal mining must continue, no matter what the human costs

This post was inspired by a recent article about coal mining in India by David Rose in the Guardian about coal mining. In India, people are dying in the streets because of excessive heat caused by global warming, but Rose reports that “ …across a broad range of Delhi politicians and policymakers there is near unanimity. There is, they say, simply no possibility that at this stage in its development India will agree to any form of emissions cap, let alone a cut. ” In other words, coal mining must continue in the name of economic growth, no matter what the human costs.I think it is hard to see a more evident example of the senility of the world’s elites. It is, unfortunately, not something that pertains only to India. Elites all over the world seem to be nearly totally blind to the desperate situation in which we all […]

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Faster than China? India’s road, rail drive could lay doubts to rest

NEW DELHI Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reformist, but hard-up government has begun a splurge on road and rail building that analysts say could remove doubts over whether economic growth in India really is overtaking China. Having roughly doubled spending allocations for roads and bridges in fiscal 2015/16, and raised the rail budget by a third, Modi is banking on India going faster. "They have acknowledged that infrastructure is the big elephant in the room," said Vinayak Chatterjee, head of infrastructure services company Feedback Infra. "Once these measures are implemented, the elephant would start dancing, and with it the overall economy." Modi’s chief economic advisor, Arvind Subramanian, reckons growth could increase by more than one percentage point this year provided ministries don’t underspend, though the central bank saw it adding just half a point. Data released on Friday showed the economy grew 7.5 percent in the quarter ending in March, […]

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Reliance Petrol Stations Are Back in Business in India

ENLARGE A woman walks past a Reliance petrol and gas station in Navi Mumbai, India, in 2012. Photo: Bloomberg News NEW DELHI— Reliance Industries Ltd. EQRELIANCE -0.73 % plans to fully resume retail sales of fuel—a business it exited in 2008—by next March, as India’s move to end diesel subsidies provides it a level playing field to compete with state-run operators. The Mumbai-based refiner of crude oil had ventured into selling gasoline and diesel in 2006 through its nearly 1,400 petrol stations across the country. But it had to shut operations as it wasn’t getting subsidies extended to state-run operators. The subsidies were to compensate retailers for losses incurred on mandatory fuel sales below market prices, aimed at shielding the poor from inflation. However, the government ended subsidies on gasoline in 2012 and diesel last October , paving the way for private operators’ entry. The move “has presented an […]

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For Modi’s year-old government, storm brewing in rural India

KHANNA/KAMARGAON, India Just one year after taking office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is facing a challenge that could come to haunt him – the farm sector that sustains three-fifths of the population is in deep trouble, and he is being blamed for not doing enough. Promising good governance and a stronger economy, Modi romped to power in elections last May by the biggest margin any prime minister has got in three decades. But the rural crisis has dented his popularity and the vanquished opposition is finding new vigor in his discomfort. From the start of the crop season last October through March, India’s farm exports have fallen more than 11 percent to $15 billion, as the impact of the global commodities glut has been sharpened by events like Iran’s nuclear talks and a currency dip in Brazil. The fall in exports has depressed domestic farmgate prices just as unseasonal […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Indian Prime Minister Prods Coal Monopoly

State-run Coal India has failed to keep pace with the country’s demand for electricity. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to whip the giant mining outfit into shape. Photo: Sanjit Das/Bloomberg News BEJDIH, India—Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to end decades of crippling electricity shortages and turn this country into a manufacturing dynamo. At the state-run behemoth’s mine here, men still move coal in baskets on their shoulders. At another project, electricity is so unreliable miners descend in a steam-powered elevator. One giant mine that opened last year runs at a fraction of capacity because a rail line to haul its coal is mired in bureaucracy. Committees and economists have long studied how to whip Coal India, the world’s largest producer of the fuel, into shape. Labor unions and their allies oppose ideas such as breaking the company into smaller units or privatizing it. Mr. Modi is taking a gradual […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple