Ending speculations of will it or will it not, Saudi Arabia has finally made its entry into the Indian oil sector with Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producer, signing an MoU with a consortium of Indian refiners to set up a mega refinery project here.

But, Saudi Aramco’s interest does not end with being just a manufacturing company, said Saudi Arabia’s Minister for Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources, Khalid Al Falih. “I don’t think Saudi Aramco will be happy doing just manufacturing,” he told journalists here adding that it has an appetite for getting into petroleum retailing as well.

Asked if Saudi Aramco would look at oil retailing business here, he said “we are very much interested in retail, as we are into the business of providing fuel and energy and petrochemical products all the way to the consumers. We want to be consumer-facing.”

“Saudi Aramco does not want to be a manufacturing company only. It wants to be in every neighbourhood and every city in India providing energy and solutions to consumers…” “We are very respectful of the regulatory environment and we would work closely with the government to ease the introduction of Saudi Aramco into the retail sectors,” he said. When asked what took Saudi Arabia so long to enter the business here, he said, “Saudi Aramco has been interested in India for decades. There was a time, if you will recall, in the 90s to offer some state-owned assets and Saudi Aramco came with Shell at that time. We went through a part of the process, including the due diligence, but due to political and legal reasons that process was discontinued. But we never looked away from India.”

Reforms in India

While refraining from commenting on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for ‘reasonable oil price’, he said, “I think it’s fair to say that the reforms that Prime Minister Modi has brought over the last few years has been nothing short of a game changer. The whole world is witnessing a change in India with transparency and easing of doing business.”

India is a priority destination for Saudi Arabia because of its geographical proximity with the Kingdom and it has a large population and a large economy, Al Falih said.

“I think more recently, the economy has really taken off. We have seen an inflection point into economic as well as energy demand and the companies have also grown to appreciate the values that Saudi Aramco and the Kingdom bring in terms of reliability and consistency of energy supplies,” he added.

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