New Delhi: India formed a group that brings together state and private refining to find better crude oil import offers, Tarun Kapoor oil secretary said on Tuesday, because the country wrestled with soaring oil prices.
The third largest importers and consumers in the world, India depends on imports around 85% of crude oil and buy most of the Middle East producers.
Initially the distiller group would meet once in two weeks and exchange ideas about the purchase of crude oil.
“Companies can form a shared strategy and they can even go for mutual negotiations as far as possible,” Kapoor, the top bureaucrat in the Ministry of Petroleum, told Reuters.
The Indian Refiner has jointly negotiated several purchases of crude oil.
To date one attempt to joint negotiations that unite not only the state but private lodging resulted in an agreement that secured Iranian oil supply at deep discounts.
With local gasoline and gasoil prices rose to a high record in the midst of the Indian worst power crisis in the years, this nation wants to multiply its efforts to be bought wisely.
The Indian trade deficit in September jumped to a record $ 22.6 billion, the highest in at least 14 years, driven by expensive imports.
Kapoor said the organization of petroleum exporting countries and allies, together known as OPEC +, must increase production to reduce global oil prices.
“OPEC + must realize that this is not the right approach, they must increase production.
If demand goes up and you do not increase production, you try to make a gap,” he said.
“Because of this, prices go up and it’s unfair”.
The producer OPEC + recently agreed to stick to the plan to increase the November output of 400,000 barrels per day (BPD) as seen to remove the output sidewalk of 5.8 million BPD from time to time.
Kapoor said the increase in oil prices would encourage oil consumers to “seriously start thinking to switch to other forms or reduce their requests for OPEC oil somehow”.
“This type of price is not sustainable.” India has reduced OPEC’s oil share in its raw mixture as a refiner, which has invested billions of dollars in increasing refineries, knocking cheaper oil.
High oil prices spur investment in upstream activities, which can lead to higher production from the area other than the Gulf, Kapoor noted.