By IANS
Chennai : To achieve energy security, India should cooperate with China in setting up a regional strategic petroleum reserve, according to Sudha Mahalingam, a member of the petroleum and natural gas regulatory board.
She also called for a de-linking of gas prices from oil (petroleum) prices and to link it to the price of coal.
Mahalingam was speaking on “India’s energy future – energy relations in the region” at a seminar hosted by the Australian high commission over the weekend.
Asia is following an “energy-intensive growth paradigm”, Mahalingam said, adding that India, Pakistan, South Korea and China would soon become the world’s energy demand hotspots.
“We lost the Bangladesh and Myanmar gas initiatives because there was no coordination between foreign and petroleum ministries. China and India were bidding against each other, jacking up prices, and finally China walked in. We have learnt from that now,” she said.
China is also looking at oil and gas from Siberia and the Asian states of Russia, rather than negotiate the Malacca Straits (notorious for oil piracy and several other problems), she pointed out.
Under these circumstances, the right way to go would be for China and India to cooperate in regional oil reserves and create floating stockpiles that countries in this region can have access to, she said.
Warning that “China would go it alone if it suited it better”, Mahalingam noted that there were transparency issues and allegations that China and India resorted to “extra-marketing initiatives”.
China has set up five strategic petroleum reserve sites and India two. “This is where we need to cooperate,” Mahalingam said.
Pleading for a common Asian marker crude and a joint lobby for de-linking gas price from oil, IPR issues and clean technology, she also said that India should take clean coal technology from China, which was way ahead in this.
Oil-based energy will continue to fill India’s energy requirements, Mahalingam said. “There will be only minor role for nuclear energy.”
India has 17 pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) producing about 10,000 MW using local uranium and this is where India’s expertise lay, she said.
However, India’s uranium resource was low. With PHWRs and the new fast breeder reactors, India could manage to generate at the most 20,000 MW in the next 10 years.
“If the Indo-US nuclear deal went through and India was allowed to take reactor fuel from nuclear supplier group countries, that fuel would only be for light water reactors,” she revealed.
India did not have expertise in this. “So India will be buying the fuel and the reactors,” according to her.
“The overnight cost of such a reactor will be $2.4 billion, which will take six-seven years to set up,” Mahalingam added.
“There will also be the fixed cost of nuclear reactor and accidental liability cost,” Mahalingam said, adding she did not see any immediate future for India’s nuclear power, even if the 123 Agreement went through.