New Delhi: Ahead of the festival season, United Arab Emirates (UAE) has agreed to supply extra cooking gas LPG to India to make up for the shortfall in supplies from its principal supplier Saudi Arabia.
While oil supplies from Saudi Arabia have not been impacted in the aftermath of a massive attack on the kingdom’s crude oil facilities, LPG imports have been affected. Saudi Arabia has deferred at least two shipments of LPG as it struggles to quickly recover the five million barrels per day of output that was lost in the attacks.
India buys around 2,00,000 tonne of LPG every month from Saudi Arabia.
“Thank UAE Minister of State and Group CEO @AdnocGroup H.E. Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber for the supply of two additional LPG cargoes on an urgent basis to meet the incremental LPG demand in the upcoming festive season. The LPG cargoes will reach India over the next two weeks,” Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan tweeted, Tuesday.
“This gesture of UAE ADNOC provides further momentum to our comprehensive strategic partnership. We look forward to collaborate and work together to strengthen our hydrocarbon engagements with an important partner like the UAE,” Dharmendra Pradhan added.
It should also be stated here that Pradhan had last week spoken to his Saudi counterpart Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman on oil supply plans. The Saudi Minister had assured of uninterrupted supplies of crude oil, officials said.
Saudi Arabia, which is India’s second-largest oil supplier, sells close to two million tonne of crude every month. Of this, 1.2-1.3 million tonne of supplies for September have already been taken and the rest too has been assured.
It should be stated year that in the 2018-19 fiscal Saudi Arabia sold 40.33 million tonnes of crude oil to India in 2018-19 fiscal.
A massive drone strike on the world’s largest crude-processing facility operated by Saudi Aramco drove oil prices to their highest level in nearly four months.
PTI