India-Oman Joint Commission Meeting, co-chaired by Shri Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation of India, and HE Dr. Ali bin Masoud al Sunaidy, Minister of Commerce and Industry, on 16 July 2018 in Muscat reviewed India-Oman bilateral economic and commercial cooperation
ENERGY SECURITY: HIGH ON THE LIST OF PRIORITIES FOR INDIA AND OMAN
By Priti Prakash *
As India and Oman celebrate the 63rd anniversary of their diplomatic relationship, there is convergence in many areas of mutual cooperation. With Prime Minister Modi’ s visit to Oman on 11 February 2018, the historically close bilateral ties took a leap forward towards becoming a robust strategic partnership at all levels. India and Oman have a lot to give each other in a variety of fields- minerals and mining, manufacturing, logistics, infrastructure, tourism, agriculture and fisheries, IT and IT enabled-services, skills development, innovation, etc. Teh energy sector is another key area of collaboration between the two countries.
According to the joint statement released during Modi’ s visit,‘’ the Indian Prime Minister invited Oman to participate in the building of strategic oil reserves in India. The Sultan briefed the Indian Prime Minister on Oman’ s own initiative to create strategic oil reserves in Ras Markaz near Duqm. The two sides agreed that there is broad scope for mutual cooperation in building their strategic oil reserves.’’
During the Prime Minister’ s visit, the Indian ambassador to the Sultanate Indra Mani Pandey added that recently there has been an Indian investment in two projects in the Special Economic Zone in Duqm( SEZD), estimated to be worth $ 1.8 billion. The volume of trade exchange between the two countries reached $ 6.7 billion in 2017- 18, registering a 67 % increase from $ 4 billion in 2016-17.
The potential for India-Oman cooperation in the field of energy, including the oil and gas sector, solar energy and wind energy is boundless. In addition to export of power equipment, Indian companies can also participate in the power sector in Oman by providing consultancy services and executing power projects. On its part, the rapidly growing energy demands in India have contributed to the need for sustaining long term energy partnerships with countries like Oman.
Cooperation in Oil and Gas sector:
Building strategic oil reserves was emphasised by Oman during PM Modi’ s visit, considering the huge oil reserves in the Gulf country.
The contentious MEIDP deep sea Gas Pipeline project, which has been slow in materialising, is planned to extend to over 1,400 km and transfer 31 million cubic meters of gas per day to India. SAGE, a private consortium based in India, is working on the transfer of gas which is sourced from Iran through the Iran-Oman undersea pipeline. Cost of building of the proposed pipeline at an acute depth of 3-3.5 kms is estimated to be around $ 5 billion.
A study on the Iran-India gas pipeline stated that natural gas imported through the over $ 4 billion line would cost $ 5-5.50 per million British thermal unit at the Indian coast, cheaper than the rate at which some of the domestic fields supply gas.
An ASSOCHAM report, widely published in the Indian media, argues that the proposed
32 • INDIA-OMAN • 2018