The next few years may witness a closer collaboration of Steel and Oil & Gas sectors of the Indian economy. Chairing a webinar on “Atmanirbhar Bharat– Fostering domestic steel usage in oil & gas sector”, the Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Steel Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan said that the growth profile of the Oil and Gas sector offers a huge opportunity to the domestic steel industry.
The webinar, organized by FICCI, was also attended to by Minister of State, Ministry of Steel Mr. Faggan Singh Kulaste, Secretary MoPNG Mr. Tarun Kapoor, Secretary Ministry of Steel Mr. Pradip Kumar Tripathi, Additional Secretary of Steel Ministry Ms Rasika Chaube, Joint Managing Director of Apollo Hospitals Enterprises and The President of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industries Dr Sangita Reddy, IOCL Chairman Mr. Sanjiv Singh, GAIL CMD Mr. Manoj Jain, SAIL CMD Mr. A K Chaudhary, ONGC Director (T&FS) Mr. O P Singh, VP & CEO AM/NS India Mr. Dilip Oommen, Engineers India Limited Group General Manager Mr. Snigdho Majumdar, Tata Steel CEO Mr. T V Narendran, L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering CEO & MD Mr.. Subramanian Sarma, Welspun Corp Ltd MD & CEO Mr. Vipul Mathur, JSW Director Mr. Jayant Acharya, JSPL MD Mr. V R Sharma and other experts from both Steel and Oil & Gas sector.
Taking the cue from the Prime Minister’s call for Atmanirbhar Bharat, Mr. Pradhan noted that for India to cater to the global economic needs, it has to make a beginning by meeting its own needs. “The refinery capacity of the country will get enhanced from 250 MT now to 450 MT in ten years, mainly due to brown field refinery expansions. More pipelines, more CGD capacity, the current 2000 odd CNG stations will get augmented to around 10,000 stations, more compressed bio-gas factories are being set up. All these means more steel will be required for these projects,” the Minister said.
Mr. Pradhan said that the Indian steel production is the world’s number 2; India is number 3 in world energy consumption. These facts give rise to the possibility of a big synergy. “Cost competitiveness may be a challenge, but it can be managed. Then investments will flow in. We need to ensure more domestic steel usage in Indian industries, as well as industries of neighbouring countries. Our government is committed to support Indian industries, especially the MSME sector and steel sector,” said Mr. Pradhan.
Earlier, backing the idea of collaboration of the two sectors, Minister of State, Steel Ministry Mr. Faggan Singh Kulaste said that from an economic point of view, a strategic alliance between Steel and oil & gas is a good direction to pursue to augment domestic resource usage, which is the target of Atmanirbhar Bharat by 2024-25. “All stakeholders need to work collectively towards this. Technology up-gradation is a vital element in this regard. I appeal all experts in this webinar to focus on the issues and come up with a concrete rod map,” said Mr. Kulaste.
Director (Technology & Field Services) Mr. O P Singh analysed the impact of COVID-19 on market conditions worldwide. He said that while India has surpassed Japan to be the world’s second-highest producer of steel, increasing the consumption of domestically-produced steel in oil & gas sector will need to consider the challenging requirements of the High Pressure High Temperature environment. Analysing the structure of the upstream petroleum Industry, Mr. Singh said the three major upstream segments are: (1) Production facilities like GGS in onshore or Process Platforms in offshore, (2) Line pipes for transportation and (3) Oil Country Tubular Goods for Exploration and Development. “The projects in all these segments will rise in the next few years.”