As Prime Minister Narendra Modi was laying the strong pitch for “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” (self-reliant India) to the UN and gave an outline of the efforts made by India to fight the coronavirus pandemic, simultaneously around the same time on Friday evening, India and the US were finalising a comprehensive energy partnership blueprint to set the high pace of the “energy diplomacy” initiated by PM Modi and President Donald Trump last year in Houston.
On Friday evening, Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan and US Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette met in a virtual meet to take forward the US-India Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership in the energy sector. Pradhan had made a strong pitch to the US to invest in the energy sector to realise the full potential of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat mission.
India’s growing tilt towards the US, while “cautiously balancing” with the traditional oil partner— Iran, is something intriguing many Washington think tanks. The big push given by PM Modi during his last Houston visit was the gamechanger and an instant boost to India-US strategic ties, say many in New Delhi.
Besides stressing heavily on enhancing energy security cooperation to modernise the power sector to conserve more and stop wastage and harness technology to innovate for surplus in energy, Brouillette-Pradhan meeting, for the first time, put focus on empowering women in the energy sector. The two leaders admitted the need for a “balanced work force and the commitment to addressing the gender diversity’’.
Detailing the cooperation outcomes, Pradhan said: “The United States and India are working to strengthen and modernize the power grid and distribution utilities for clean, affordable, and reliable energy access, improve efficiency, flexibility, and environmental performance in the power sector. It promotes inclusive and sustainable economic growth through long-term energy development, enhances energy security through oil and gas trade, and infrastructure investment. The partnership also makes India a strong energy partner of the US in the Indo-Pacific region.”
The two countries are also leading joint research and development (R&D) through the US-India Partnership to Advance Clean EnergyResearch (PACE-R) on smart grids and energy storage to increase resilience and reliability of the electric grid. Today, Secretary Brouillette briefed about continued bilateral R&D engagement on advanced civil nuclear energy technologies through the US-India Civil Nuclear Energy Working Group.
Pradhan added, “SEP teams will convene again in the near future to further develop action plans for the respective pillars of cooperation. The next Ministerial meeting will be held in 2021.”
Officials told The Daily Guardian, “Through the US-India Natural Gas Task Force, the US industry forged new commercial partnerships on innovative projects and developed a series of policy and regulatory recommendations to support the Government of India’s vision to increase the share of natural gas in India’s energy sector. The sides have also held numerous public-private dialogues to provide industry perspectives on challenges and opportunities to trade and investment across the energy sector. The efforts of cooperation and exploring opportunities of business in the energy sector has redefined the Indo-US ties, a glimpse of the strong bonds we saw as India battled China along the LAC in Galwan Valley.”
Pradhan, who had earlier chaired many meetings with the US industry leaders and with his counterpart Brouillette, said: “Apart from fostering bilateral energy trade and investments, we are seeking to align energy cooperation with energy security, expand energy and innovation linkages across our respective energy sectors, facilitate increased industry and stakeholder engagement as well as institutions of excellence from both countries.”
He said, India is satisfied “at the significant increase in bilateral energy trade in a short span of 3 years. The bilateral hydrocarbons trade alone has touched US$ 9.2 billion during 2019-20, accounting for 10% of the overall bilateral trade”. Pradhan told TDG: “We have also seen significant reduction in the trade deficit between the two countries. In fact, India is now the fourth largest export destination for US crude and 5th largest for US LNG. The trend is expected to continue with Indian companies entering into more long-term contracts going forward from this year.”
The minister added that the country is also in “an advanced stage of discussions for storing crude oil in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve to increase India’s strategic oil stockpile”.
To keep the US-India energy diplomacy in high spirits, NITI Aayog and USAID have also launched the India Energy Modeling Forum to enhance long-term energy development and plans and strategies through energy data management, and also various programmes to promote low carbon technologies.
Pradhan said, “We have agreed to collaborate in new areas including bio-energy, RE in agriculture and SMEs, high efficiency coal technologies with low-to-zero emissions through CCUS…We also agreed to include ‘Women in Energy’ as a crosscutting theme across the four Pillars of the SEP. This theme will encourage women’s participation in energy governance structures as well as end users as reflected in India’s Ujjawala programme.”
Lauding PM Modi for laying the foundation of this highly productive Indo-US energy diplomacy with President Trump, Pradhan said: “In a short span of time, the Strategic Energy Partnership launched at the directive of PM Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump is emerging as mutually beneficial, and also one of the most resilient pillars on which the overall India-US Strategic Partnership rests.”
Pradhan also invited the US companies to join the Aatmanirbhar Bharat mission, which aims to transform India into a global manufacturing hub of the 21st century, particularly in the development of energy infrastructure. “While India has the market, the US has oil and gas reserves, potential for investments and related advance technologies. Our collaboration, I am confident, will be win-win for all,” Pradhan said.