
Energy outreach: Oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri pitches India's growth story to oil majors; Opec ties, LNG push top agenda
Hardeep Singh Puri
met top global energy leaders on the sidelines of the 9th
Opec
International Seminar in Vienna, holding bilateral discussions to bolster India's energy security and expand partnerships across the hydrocarbons value chain, according to an official statement.
During his meeting with Kuwaiti Oil Minister and KPC Chairman Tareq Sulaiman Al-Roumi, Puri explored ways to deepen cooperation, PTI reported.
Kuwait is India's 6th largest source of crude oil, 4th largest LPG supplier, and the 8th biggest hydrocarbon trade partner.
In a separate meeting with Nigerian Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Heineken Lokpobiri, the two sides discussed boosting crude trade. 'Indian companies have been consistent buyers of Nigerian crude, and the discussions focused on exploring avenues to further expand hydrocarbons trade between the two nations and reinforce the longstanding partnership,' the statement said.
The minister also met Shell CEO Wael Sawan to discuss collaborations in oil and gas exploration. 'Puri underlined that India's efforts to increase the share of natural gas in its energy mix from 6 per cent to 15 per cent present significant opportunities for advanced technological partnerships. He noted that the drive towards greater exploration and production (E&P) activity stands to benefit from Shell's cutting-edge technologies, paving the way for mutually beneficial collaborations that support India's energy security objectives,' it said.
In his interaction with Opec Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais, Puri reaffirmed India's long-standing partnership with the oil producers' group. 'They discussed India's strong partnership with Opec and ways to ensure that oil markets remain balanced and predictable to support smooth global transition into green and alternative energies, particularly in light of recent geopolitical challenges. As the world's 3rd largest importer of oil, India and Opec, the grouping of major oil producers, share a unique and symbiotic relationship,' the statement said.
Talks with BP CEO Murray Auchincloss focused on expanding the global major's participation in India's upstream and downstream sectors. BP already has significant presence across India's energy chain and has participated in past bid rounds.
Puri also met Vitol Group CEO Russel Hardy to review market challenges and explore avenues for collaboration. 'Puri noted the vast collaboration opportunities arising from India's unprecedented thrust towards expanding and enhancing energy infrastructure — including exploration and production, refining, and gas-based energy transition,' the statement said.
India meets more than 85 per cent of its oil demand through imports and also relies heavily on imported natural gas to fuel its fast-growing economy.
Stay informed with the latest
business
news, updates on
bank holidays
and
public holidays
.
AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Economic Times
10 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Indian cloud companies to storm local skies with low-cost advantage
Synopsis Indian companies are competing in the cloud market. They offer local data storage and infrastructure. These firms aim to undercut global giants on cost. Airtel, Jio, Tata Communications, and Yotta are key players. They target the public sector and regulated industries. Experts note challenges in technology and migration. Hyperscalers like Microsoft and Amazon are also expanding in India. Agencies Indian corporates are building muscle to challenge bigger global rivals in the fast-growing cloud market, with offerings that store data applications and related infrastructure within the country, referred to as sovereign cloud. These homegrown firms are underlining lower costs as their biggest advantage against the foreign competitors. Bharti Airtel's Xtelify, Reliance's JioCloud for SMEs, Tata Communications' Vayu, and Yotta's Shakti are tailored for local enterprises, especially in public sector and other regulated industries. And they are aiming to take on hyperscalers Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform, positioning themselves as affordable and secure alternatives with cost savings of 30%-50% over the global giants. Hyperscalers are large cloud providers offering massive computing resources and infrastructure. However, factors such as limited technology depth, lack of ecosystem maturity, and high migration costs from the global cloud providers are limiting the ambitious growth plans of the Indian companies, say experts. They added that interoperability between cloud providers is almost non-existent, making migration costly and technically complex."The emergence of indigenous cloud platforms represents a market response to India's sovereign cloud policy framework, creating domestic alternatives for regulated sectors," said Jitesh Karlekar, director-research at real estate research and advisory firm JLL. "However, these nascent providers will need to rapidly build technical sophistication, security credentials, and operational scale to effectively compete with established global platforms." According to an IDC study, 15-20% of Indian companies are adopters of some sovereign cloud solution for ensuring compliance and security of their core applications and data. "Sovereign cloud is still in the early stages with little adoption in India," said Rajiv Ranjan, associate director, cloud and AI at research firm IDC India. "A key reason for not migrating to sovereign cloud could be higher costs and the risks associated with migrating applications which might be time consuming and cause business disruptions." He added that enterprises in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) space need to be also fully confident with adequate security and compliance norms being met with the domestic offerings. Meanwhile, hyperscalers have rapidly grown their footprint in India through pacts with mobile phone operators. In 2019, Microsoft signed a 10-year deal with telecom market leader Reliance Jio for co-development of affordable cloud-based solutions, particularly targeted towards SMEs and startups. For its free consumer cloud storage, Jio has netted over 35 million active users. A year later, second-ranked telco Bharti Airtel signed a deal with AWS to develop differentiated Airtel Cloud products. It also tied up with Google Cloud the same year to offer G-Suite services such as Gmail, and Google Docs to to a study by policy body Centre for Internet and Digital Economy, India's $8.3 billion cloud market revenue is dominated by international vendors, with Microsoft (27%) and AWS (15%) together having a 42% share, with all other competitors, including Salesforce and SAP, having shares of less than 5% each. In the pure infrastructure space, Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud have a combined 87% market share. Bharti Airtel on Monday launched its sovereign cloud, with its vice chairman, Gopal Vittal, stressing that the telco's offering will lead to cost savings of 30-40% over rivals due to its mix of network and cloud the Centre for Internet and Digital Economy study on the competitive landscape in the Indian cloud market showed new entrants are struggling to match the free cloud credits and startup support offered by global global companies provide large sums in cloud credits and access to accelerator programs, giving them a strong edge in customer acquisition, said industry experts. In contrast, local firms often restrict credits to a small circle of existing clients and face difficulty competing for cloud-native startups. However, Indian providers are attracting small and mid-sized businesses by offering 30-70% cost savings and greater billing transparency, areas where hyperscalers fall short due to complex pricing and poor cost visibility, the study showed. The global rivals with technical strength though are better equipped to forecast and manage cloud costs, offering better expense visibility to their clients, compared with their smaller rivals.


Economic Times
10 minutes ago
- Economic Times
AI news today: Over 10,000 jobs lost in 2025 due to artificial intelligence, Karnataka working with cos to assess workforce impact and more
Artificial intelligence continues to make headlines across sectors, from regulation to investment. OpenAI announced it would freely release two AI models used in chatbot development, a move expected to spark both praise and debate among AI experts. Meanwhile, U.S. authorities voiced concern over the use of AI in setting personalized airline ticket prices, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pledging an investigation. In Abu Dhabi, MGX is reportedly aiming to raise up to $25 billion for an AI-focused investment fund. At the same time, AI's impact on the job market is becoming evident, with over 10,000 U.S. job losses in 2025 linked to the technology, according to a new report. In India, the AI conversation spans both innovation and accountability. Force Motors launched an AI-driven fleet intelligence platform for its commercial vehicles, offering real-time analytics and predictive maintenance. Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge revealed that the state is conducting a survey on AI's workforce impact, expected to conclude in a month. On the cultural front, actor-filmmaker Farhan Akhtar weighed in on the controversy over the AI-altered re-release of Raanjhanaa , expressing his support for creative integrity and the original vision of filmmakers. OpenAI to share parts of ChatGPT tech with public In a move likely to draw both praise and concern from AI experts, OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it will make two of its chatbot-powered AI models freely available. US criticizes use of AI to set personalized airline tickets, would investigate U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday the department has concerns about the use of AI to set personalized airline ticket prices and will investigate if anyone does so. Abu Dhabi's MGX could raise as much as $25 billion for AI investment fund, Bloomberg News reports Abu Dhabi-based MGX is considering plans to raise billions of dollars in third-party capital as it looks to ramp up investments in artificial intelligence, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday. MGX could raise as much as $25 billion for the vehicle, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. AI has led to more than 10,000 job cuts this year, shows report AI has been linked to over 10,000 job losses in the U.S. so far in 2025, according to a new report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Force Motors launches AI-driven fleet intelligence analytics platform Pune-based automaker Force Motors on Tuesday announced the launch of a new connected vehicle platform for AI-driven fleet intelligence and predictive analytics, and said the new offering will come as a standard feature across all its commercial vehicles besides as a certified aftermarket solution through authorized to complete AI workforce impact survey in a month: Priyank Kharge Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge on Tuesday said the state is talking to companies to evaluate the impact of AI on workforce and the assessment is expected to be completed in about a month. "I will always stand with the creator": Farhan Akhtar amid controversy over AI-altered re-release of 'Raanjhanaa' The controversy surrounding the AI-altered ending of the Dhanush-starrer 'Raanjhanaa' has gained momentum, as after filmmaker Aanand L Rai and Dhanush, now actor-filmmaker Farhan Akhtar has spoken about it and shown his support for the creators. He said, "I will always stand with the creator of the film. And, if the creator of the film was unhappy about his or her work being changed, I will always support the creator. So that's where my loyalty lies. The rest, the finer print of what happened there, I am not privy to. But that's all I can say about that".


India Today
12 minutes ago
- India Today
Modi misread Trump: Now India pays the price
A war of words has erupted between New Delhi and Washington, exposing the fragility of what was once hailed as a geopolitical success story. India has hit back hard at US President Donald Trump's threat to hike tariffs on Indian goods over continued imports of Russian oil, calling the targeting "unjustified and unreasonable" whilst slamming what it perceives as Washington's double The so-called Modi-Trump bromance, once paraded as diplomatic triumph, is now cracking under the weight of harsh reality. What began with mutual praise and public spectacle, from the "Howdy Modi" event in Houston to the grand "Namaste Trump" reception in Ahmedabad, has devolved into accusations, tariffs, and transactional Fatal MiscalculationOne of New Delhi's fundamental missteps was assuming that warm handshakes and mega-rallies could override hard economic interests. Modi's outreach to Trump was personal, public, and passionate, but Trump doesn't separate business from bromance. The "great friend" narrative gave India false confidence that proved Modi threw his weight behind Trump, literally sharing the stage with him in Houston and Ahmedabad, it was a bet on personal chemistry over policy complexity. India saw Trump not as a volatile businessman-president, but as a dealmaker who'd favour "friends." The reality? Trump doesn't do friendships, he does leverage. And India misread that playbook temples in Varanasi to villages in Gujarat, people performed pujas praying for Trump's victory. Modi had pulled off spectacular diplomatic theatre, and India felt it had America in its corner. Yet Trump's loyalty lies only with the US balance sheet, viewing India as a trade surplus machine rather than a strategic Russian Oil WedgeIndia's dependence on Russian oil has become the new wedge in this deteriorating relationship. With crude prices volatile and energy security paramount, India turned to Moscow for discounted supply, with Russia now accounting for up to 40% of India's oil imports. Trump, who views foreign policy through a profit-loss lens, sees this as lashed out, accusing India of undermining the West's Ukraine strategy and "helping Putin," with tariffs becoming punishment. Worse still, he's framed it as India profiting from global chaos. Modi's government finds itself caught in a trilemma: oil security, global optics, and Trump's offensive 4th August 2025, India's Ministry of External Affairs dropped a diplomatic bombshell in response. Calling Trump's tariff threats "unjustified and unreasonable," the MEA emphasised that India's oil purchases are driven by survival, not sympathy for Moscow. With Middle Eastern oil redirected to Europe after the Ukraine war, India had little choice but to buy discounted Russian crude to shield its economy. India's anger wasn't merely economic, it was moral. The statement highlighted US and EU hypocrisy, pointing out how the West continues trading heavily with Russia in everything from uranium to fertilisers, yet singles out India for 25% Tariff HammerTrump's imposition of a 25% tariff on all Indian goods wasn't just economic muscle-flexing, it was a warning shot. The US goods trade deficit with India stood at $45.7 billion in 2024, which Trump views as theft, plain and simple. His administration has revived old complaints about high tariffs, restricted market access, regulatory red tape, and "unfair" practices in pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and most jarring for India was Trump's renewed outreach to Pakistan, military meetings, energy cooperation discussions, and vague proposals of "regional balance." For a country that expected Trump to be firmly in its anti-Pakistan corner, this felt like betrayal, exposing another blind spot in India's strategic Path ForwardIndia must now abandon illusions of personal diplomacy. Trump is a negotiator, not a friend, he respects leverage, not loyalty. New Delhi must shift from sentimentality to strategy, from ceremonial displays to pragmatic biggest lesson? Don't tie national strategy to individual leaders. American policy is shifting toward hard realism, and India must do the same. This means engaging not as a junior partner seeking approval, but as a sovereign power navigating a multipolar obsession with optics, handshakes, stagecraft, mega-events, must give way to tough negotiations, quiet diplomacy, and pragmatic positioning. Because Trump isn't here to dance at "Namaste Trump" events, he's here to deal. And if Modi wants to succeed, it's time to stop praying and start playing hardball politics.- Ends