Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan embarks on visit to Russia and Japan

New Delhi, Oct 22 (HS): Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Steel Dharmendra Pradhan, accompanied by an official and business delegation, is embarking on visit to Russia and Japan (22-26 October).

As a  up to the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Vladivostok for the Eastern Economic Forum in September 2019, the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel is embarking on Vladivostok visit (22-25 October).

During his visit, the Minister will have meetings with Sergey Tyrtsev, First Deputy Minister for Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, and with Igor Sechin, CEO of Rosneft. He will also visit the shipbuilding Complex, Zvezda and the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project in Russia’s Far East. Possible areas of collaboration in other sectors like coking coal, and shipping routes will also be discussed.

ONGC Videsh Ltd, a PSU under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, had joined Sakhalin-1 consortium by acquiring 20% participating interest in July 2001. The project is one of the largest single foreign direct investments in Russia.

In addition, Engineers India Ltd. (EIL), another PSU under the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, will sign anMoU with the Russian National Chamber of Engineers. The MoU will strengthen the symbiotic bilateral energy cooperation as the technical expertise of both organisations will help EIL in providing its services for upcoming projects across the hydrocarbons value chain in Russia.

At the invitation of the Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Pradhan will visit Tokyo, Japan, (from 25-26 October) to participate in the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity (GFSEC) Ministerial meeting. Presently, Japan holds the Chair of this Global Forum. The proposed GFSEC meeting will involve policy discussions.

Further, the Minister will have a meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Isshu Sugawara to discuss issues of bilateral collaboration in the fields of energy as well as steel. Pradhan will also have meetings with Japanese steel industries to discuss strengthening collaborative investments in India. In addition, meetings of the Minister with his counterpart Ministers from other countries are also scheduled, on the sidelines of the Ministerial meeting.

India and Japan have lot of synergies in the energy sector. In the run up to energy transition in India to a gas based economy, India is collaborating on a big scale with Japan in the LNG sector, to inter alia, exchange best practices and to develop a flexible global LNG Market.