At a time when oil is hovering around $100 a barrel, 10 biggies from the oil, coal and power industries got together at the Fe Roundtable Conference on Wednesday to discuss the major issues and the challenges that various energy-related sectors are facing.
Power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde is upbeat about the capacity addition of an estimated 78,577 mw in the 11 th Plan, far more than what had been in the last three five year Plans. Of this, orders for over 60,000 mw have already been placed while projects with 7,000 mw capacity have been commissioned.
Indian Oil Corporation director SV Narsimhan called for subsidy from the government in the upcoming Budget while Petronet LNG managing director P Dasgupta wants the central government to consider the issue of dual pricing as well as the creation of a gas pricing hub at a time when developed countries are sourcing gas at $7 per million british thermal unit (mmbtu).
“India is bound to be impacted by hike in global prices. Moreover, with the price of exploration touching the sky, there is no way we can sustain older prices,” ONGC chairman and managing director RS Sharma added. He made a strong pitch for doing away with the present system of adhoc mechanism to compensate under-recoveries of oil marketing companies.
“This is a global market and we are part of it. Hence there is a need to play business the global way,” Subir Raha, executive vice-chairman of Hinduja Group said.
Power Finance Corporation CMD VK Garg and T Sankaralangim, CMD of NTPC, argued in favor of a dual-pricing mechanism and pooling of gas prices. “The government should target subsidies and make them transparent,” adds S Sundershan, additional secretary, ministry of petroleum.
However, Anil Razdan, secretary, ministry of power said, “In an effort to meet the growing demand, power production has to grow at the rate of 8% and this can be done by maximizing indigenous production, increasing efficiency and utilizing existing assets at its full capacity.”
Against this backdrop, coal secretary HC Gupta said that the coal sector is not confronted with the issue of pricing but how to augment the production to support the proposed capacity addition in the country.