India plans to nearly double its oil refining capacity in the next five years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday, offering a much more aggressive schedule than before despite the coronavirus
pandemic that ruins the economy.
The country’s energy minister was quoted in June as saying that India’s oil refining capacity could rise to 450-500 million tonnes in 10 years from the current level of around 250 million tonnes.
But addressing the call for an oil university, Modi said that “work is being done to almost double the country’s oil refining capacity in the next five years.”
Modi said India was also aiming to increase the share of natural gas in its energy consumption mix up to four times. The cleaner burning fuel currently represents around 6% of the energy consumed in the country.
India would achieve its goals of increasing renewable energy capacity to 175 gigawatts by 2022 and 450 gigawatts by 2030 ahead of schedule, Modi added. The country had a renewable energy capacity of around 75 gigawatts at the end of 2018.
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