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New Delhi, May 19: The ministry of petroleum and natural gas is giving final touches to a strategy paper on India-China cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector. The essence of this paper is to encourage cooperation in place of competition between the two sides.
With India and China being principal importing countries, both are pursuing similar policies and strategies at home and abroad to enhance their energy security over the next 20-30 years. However, competition between the two for acquiring same oil and gas fields abroad is leading to higher prices being demanded by owners of these properties.
Therefore, in order to maximise returns from the efforts being made by them separately at home and abroad, the two countries should pool their resources to ensure assured supplies at reasonable prices.
It is proposed that Indian and Chinese companies could pre-determine between them the oil and gas blocks in which they are interested in a specific country to avoid competing with each other to the extent possible. Co-operation in this area would also include sharing of information and assessments relating to specific blocks on offer.
As both the countries are pursuing transnational pipeline projects, the possibilities of pipelines linking them should be explored. While India is looking at pipelines from Iran, Central Asia and Myanmar, China too has been examining the possibility of pipelines reaching its industrial centres from Russia and Central Asia.
“Academics have suggested a few proposals and it is for our engineers to give concrete shape to these ideas, particularly in overcoming the challenges of distance and the formidable geological obstacles that would effect these projects,” the paper adds.
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