Indian FICCI Delegation to OTC Makes Strong Case for Offshore Drilling Collaboration

By Jawahar Malhotra

HOUSTON: This year’s Offshore Technology Conference was once again the focus of the delegation of Indian companies who came to attend the four day event last week from May 6 through 9 at Reliant Park.

In past years, Indian companies have sent many of their employees to visit and network at the OTC. In the past ten years, the Indian Ministry of Oil and Gas has often sent a delegation, accompanied by the Minister himself, on a road show to several cities in North America to interest US firms to bid for rights to drill in offshore tracts in. This year the emphasis was on collaboration of a different sort as a delegation from the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry visited the OTC to explore alliances with local counterparts.

The delegation consisted of 25 professionals from many segments of Indian industry, including private and state-owned companies like Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd.; Cairn India Ltd.; Directorate General of Hydrocarbons; GAIL (India) Ltd.; IBM; Indian Oil Corp. Ltd; Oil and Natural Gas Corp. and SBI Capital Markets Ltd. to name just a few. Their focus was on developing US-India Strategic Hydrocarbons Partnerships and towards this end, after a box lunch, they held an afternoon long workshop which was attended by about 60 people.

The workshop included a panel discussion on oil and gas opportunities in India led off by Ken Hyatt, the Acting Deputy Under Secretary for the International Trade Agency of the US Dept. of Commerce and also Nolty Theriot of the US International Business Council. Hyatt acknowledged that the growth in India which was fueled by a rising middle class put pressure on the country to ensure a dependable supply of energy. He hinted that he may be visiting later in December to expand economic ties. Theriot announced a new initiative for US and Indian universities to collaborate on training.

Indian Consul General Parvathaneni Harish spoke of his personal satisfaction in putting the workshop together for one of the largest delegations from India at the OTC. He emphasized that energy security was paramount to India to help lift the population out of poverty and to maintain 7 to 8% GDP growth rates, which would require a commensurate 5% growth in energy supply as the per capita energy consumption would only grow. To do so, he added, would require improving Indian infrastructure and producing more hydrocarbons locally as 50% is currently imported.

Harish noted that the new shale gas growth in the US has changed the global energy equation as the country becomes a global natural gas supplier. He has been active since he first assumed office in October last year to help cement a contract with Cheniere Energy to export LNG from the Sabine Pass Liquefaction plant in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. The first contract was signed with GAIL for 3.5 million tonnes a year and the second agreement is for 2.3 million tonnes per year; both subject to Dept. of Energy approvals, which are pending in the next two to three years. “It is a big moment for India-US energy partnership,” Harish noted in conclusion.

Following him, Vivek Pandit, the Senior Director and Head for Energy at FICCI spoke about the thriving Indian $2 trillion economy which has grown by from 5 to 8% a year, outstripping the economies of the west which have grown at about 2% per year. “India is vibrant but has a chaotic media,” he said. “But democracy has its own speed.” He added that investors could not ignore India for long.

  Following a brief video presentation on Petrotech 2014 to be held outside of New Delhi in January and the Asia Gas Partnership Summit 2013., the other panelists and visiting delegates made presentations about various aspects of doing business in the oil and gas sector in India. Among these were Sanjay Arya of the US Embassy in New Delhi; Manav  Kanwar, Managing Director of SK Oilfield Equipment Co.; Sunil Bharati, Head Corporate Affairs and Communications of Cairn India Ltd.; Gajendra Singh, Executive Director, GAIL (India); Arundhati Bhattacharya, MD and CEO, SBI Capital Markets; Shashi Shankar, Director, ONGC and S. K. Srivastava, Chief Managing Director, Oil India Ltd.

The workshop concluded with a question and answer session followed by networking and consultations between the delegates and attendees.