India: Petroleum Secretary calls upon oil and gas scientists to accelerate innovations for meeting Forthcoming Challenges
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13 Jan 2010

Shri R.S. Pandey, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas emphasized here today the need for oil & gas scientists to brace up for facing the emerging challenges in the light of growing consumption of petroleum products. Inaugurating a National Science Conference on Vision 2030 for Petroleum Industry, he pointed out that the energy has been a part of our civilization for the past 150 years and this sector needs to ponder over the enormous challenges emerging before the world particularly by 2030 as the major exporters like Saudia Arabia and Russia are estimated to produce much less oil by that time. He informed that the energy consumption in India and China has been growing faster than the rest of the world. India and China in 1990 accounted for a consumption of 10% which increased to 19% in 2006 and is expected to grow to 28% of the global consumption by 2030.

Petroleum Secretary further emphasised the need for developing and exploiting the new fuels/sources of energy like solar, biofuels, hydrogen etc. and at the same time keep the environmental aspects in mind. The need for improvement in technology of transportation sector was also stressed in the context of this sector cornering a major part of the fuel consumption.

The Conference organized by the Indian Oil’s Faridabad R&D Centre was also addressed by Shri Sarthak Behuria, Chairman, IOC and Shri Anand Kumar, Director(R&D), IOC.

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