Petroleum Secretary calls upon oil and gas scientists to accelerate innovations

New Delhi, Jan 12 (ANI): RS Pandey, Secretary for the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on Tuesday emphasised the need for oil and gas scientists to brace up for facing the emerging challenges in the light of growing consumption of petroleum products.

Inaugurating a National Science Conference on Vision 2030 for Petroleum Industry, Pandey pointed out that the energy has been a part of our civilization for the past 150 years and this sector needs to ponder over the enormous challenges emerging before the world particularly by 2030 as the major exporters like Saudia Arabia and Russia are estimated to produce much less oil by that time.

Pandey informed that the energy consumption in India and China has been growing faster than the rest of the world. India and China in 1990 accounted for a consumption of 10 percent, which increased to 19 percent in 2006 and is expected to grow to 28 percent of the global consumption by 2030.

Petroleum Secretary further emphasised the need for developing and exploiting the new fuels/sources of energy like solar, biofuels, hydrogen etc. and at the same time keep the environmental aspects in mind.

The need for improvement in technology of transportation sector was also stressed in the context of this sector cornering a major part of the fuel consumption.

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) Chairman Sarthak Behuria and Anand Kumar, the director (R and D), IOC also addressed the conference organised by Indian Oil's Faridabad R and D Centre. (ANI)