Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to chair a meeting with top management of major oil and gas companies, to focus on macro-economic challenges amidst rising current account deficit and oil import bill.
According to official sources, Chairman and Managing Director at Reliance Industries Limited, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Vedanta Resources, Anil Agarwal are expected to be at the meeting. Heads of public sector undertaking oil and gas companies will be also present.
Patrick Pouyanne, CEO of Total, Nigel Hearne, MD at Chevron Australia, Lorenzo Simonelli, CEO of GE Oil, Isabelle Kocher, CEO, Engie, Darren Woods, CEO, Exxon Mobil, and Bob Dudley, CEO of BP Plc, will be attend the meet.
Khalid A Al Falih, the Saudi Minister of Energy will also be present.
The meeting will take place on Monday, October 15, in Delhi. It will also take stock of a vision to lower imports that was drawn last year. “This year’s meeting is to discuss how we all can work together to tackle these challenges.”
“India holds immense opportunities in its oil and gas sector, this was discussed even last year but how many companies have actually come in the sector and invested?. It was just one Vedanta that got 41 out of the 55 blocks on offer during the first round of auctions under the Open Acreage License regime. Where are all the other companies?,” an official aware of the meeting said.
He said, “The meeting is aimed with a clear focus to attract investments, look at ways to provide ease of doing business in India. The country is very well positioned to increase domestic production as a billion of barrels of oil and oil equivalents remain to be discovered.”
“India’s hydrocarbon resource base stands at 300 billion barrels of oil equivalent against which only 88 billion barrels of oil equivalent have been discovered,” he added.