India, US Energy Trade to Jump 40%: Minister

India's energy trade with the US is expected to jump by over 40% to $10bn in the financial year 2019-20 (April-March), Indian petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan said during an event that was held in New Delhi on October 21.

“Our crude oil import from the USA was almost nil in 2014. Now, the total import of petroleum products from USA including LNG in 2018-19 stood at over $7bn, and is likely to go up to $10bn,” he said.

At present, Qatar is India’s main LNG supplier but in recent years, the south Asian nation has tried to diversify its LNG sourcing and now has long-term contracts with the US, Australia and Russia. State-run Gail has long-term contracts to import LNG from the US and recently, another Indian state-run firm, Petronet LNG, signed a memorandum of understanding with Tellurian to negotiate the supply of up to 5mn mt/yr of LNG from the Driftwood export project. Petronet LNG also intends to spend $2.5bn on an 18% equity stake in the project. 

Pradhan said that US shale oil and gas production has brought "reasonable balance in the global energy market" with its availability countering any volatility in the Middle East, he said.