Indian-Amercians to advise India on her oil needs

A group of Indian Americans from Texas plan to help India meet its escalating energy needs by offering advice on exploring new oil fields and improving recovery from existing ones.

The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston -- at the initiative of then consul general Skand Tayal, who has since been named ambassador to Uzbekistan -- has created an energy group to focus on this crucial issue for India. Houston neurosurgeon and outgoing Chamber President Randhir Sinha formally announced the formation of an advisory group.

The Tayal-Sinha initative has the blessings of Mani Shankar Aiyar, India's minister for petroleum. During his February visit to Houston, Aiyar endorsed the proposal to harness the skills of Indian-American 'domain experts' to advise his ministry on policy and technical issues. S C Tripathi, India's petroleum secretary and other high-ranking government officials subsequently visited Houston to help give the proposals concrete shape.

"The group will propose directions and possible solutions for about 25 specific technical issues which have been identified by the Oil and Natural Gas Commission," Tayal told Rediff India Abroad in an interview by e-mail. "It will initiate a dialogue between the domain experts of ONGC and Houston-based experts for exchange of ideas and un-patented information about new technologies. The potential is great, and the group will begin with a modest agenda and grow in due course."

The group, which had its first meeting recently, is being co-chaired by the consul general of India in Houston and by Vijay Goradia, IACCGH advisor and the chairman of chemicals and plastics firm Vinmar International, but will function as an autonomous entity under the Chamber's auspices. It is open to all experts in the energy sector who are willing to share their knowledge and expertise with India's ministry of oil and gas and public sector corporations.

Jagdip Ahluwalia, one of the nominees on the group, said the decision to create the energy group was purely altruistic. "The energy initiative is part of a series of initiatives to leverage the India advantage," he said.

India, the world's sixth largest energy consumer, is projected to double its consumption in the next 15 years. However, the country has not made any major domestic oil finds since the mid-1970s.

According to B N Murali, president of Beenken TechQuest Ltd, formerly a vice-president at oil multinational Haliburton and member of the expert group the deepwater reserves in the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea, and Indian Ocean remain largely unexplored. To tap into these reserves, Murali told Rediff India Abroad, requires the latest in technology, of the kind that has been harnessed in the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, and West Africa.

Murali pointed out that the problem was compounded by the fact that recovery from existing oil fields in India is also below the global average. "Increasing recovery by even a few percentage points will add a lot of reserves that can help meet some of the growing demand," Also there is a need to attract international oil companies to bring capital and technology to explore for oil both on land and offshore. "India needs the capital and technology that the IOCs (International Oil Corporations) can bring."

Murali makes several other points. He feels there is a need for aggressively accessing reserves outside India through production-sharing arrangements. He says that India's oil and gas professionals are technically sound, and have done a good job of exploring and exploiting the country's oil and gas fields. But they could use the technology and experience of those who have seen problems outside of the Indian context; many of the solutions these experts have come up with will be applicable to India, he said.

"There is a vast amount of experience and knowledge with the Indian professionals in the US, who have worked all over the globe for IOCs and major service companies," Murali said. "Many of them are willing to share their experience in helping the Indian oil and gas industry. The group will try to harness this knowledge and assist the ministry, ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Commission) and the Directorate of Hydrocarbons."

It's early days yet, but the group has put together a list of topics for ONGC's attention. "We are trying to get subject matter experts in these topics to look at the issues and see how we may be able to suggest solutions that have not been tried yet," Murali said.