- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
ENERGY giants like ExxonMobil are looking forward to working with India to discover cleaner sources of energy to help the Asian economy become energy-independent by 2047, a target set up by prime minister Narendra Modi, a top official of the US company has revealed. India will complete 100 years of its independence the same year.
Peter Lavoy, senior director, Asia Pacific, International Government Relations at ExxonMobil, said this after meeting Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is currently in the US, on Monday (11).
Sitharaman is in the US for a week to take part in the annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington besides the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting.
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“The whole world is going through an energy transition now. It has to get cleaner sources of energy because you have to mitigate the problems of climate change,” Lavoy said.
He added that India is going through another energy transition and has to provide energy which is affordable, accessible and secure to its population which sometimes may not have electricity.
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“So it has that energy transition as well as the energy transition of getting cleaner sources of energy. I think the Prime Minister’s objective, the target he set at the Independence Day speech of making India energy independent by 2047,” on the country’s 100th birthday, “is exactly the right target for energy security. And companies like Exxon Mobil are looking forward to working with India to find cleaner sources of energy to help meet that objective,” Lavoy said.
In a tweet, the Indian finance ministry said that John Ardill, senior vice president of ExxonMobil, told Sitharaman during his meeting with her that the Texas-based energy firm “is keen on playing an active role in raising share of Natural Gas in overall energy mix of India and is very excited about Prime Minister’s vision of energy independence for India”.
He also “mentioned that reforms in India have been great for investment purposes and also looking forward to contributing towards decarbonising the energy system as well as use of Hydrogen as a substitute,” the tweet added.
Modi said in his address on this year’s Independence Day that India can achieve self-reliance in energy through a mix of gas-based economy.
“For India to progress, for Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self reliant India), energy independence is necessary. India has to take a pledge that it will be energy independent by the year we celebrate the 100th year of Independence,” he said.
The roadmap for that is to increase usage of natural gas in the economy, setting up a network for supply of CNG and piped natural gas across the country. The country has achieved the target of 100 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity ahead of the target, the prime minister said.
