TheCable

India, a major net exporter of refined products, with output of about five million barrels per day (mbpd), has called on the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to wake up to responsible pricing.

Speaking at the second India-OPEC dialogue in Vienna on Monday, Dharmendra Pradhan, India’s minister of petroleum and natural gas, said his country has become a major player in the oil industry and should enjoy certain incentives.

Pradhan said 23 refineries in India are now processing 235 million metric tonnes of crude annually or 4.7 million barrel per day capacity.

“Coming to the India-OPEC dialogue, it is crucial for us as we import about 86% of our crude, 70% of natural gas, 95% of cooking gas from the OPEC countries,” he said.

“We expect this dialogue mechanism to be a useful tool to convey our position to the OPEC member countries. Our companies pay billions of dollars on this account. They still don’t understand the rationale of this cross subsidisation of tariff between West and the East.

He asked OPEC to treat Asian markets as primary markets, saying OPEC’s “strategy of incentivising Western markets in the past did not result in retaining those markets”.

“I am fully aware that OPEC member countries are in the business of selling oil and not subsidising it. However, my purpose of raising this issue again today is to say that don’t subsidise others at our expense.

“I urge the OPEC and through you also to Non-OPEC countries to purposefully consider this. The other issue I have been raising is that OPEC should work towards ‘Responsible Price’ which would allow major consuming countries to provide energy to the common people.

“Higher prices would force them to go for alternate forms of energy which would be slowing down the demand of crude oil.”