Mani Shankar Aiyer: PM Modi should leverage his position for energy security

Mumbai: Former oil and gas minister Mani Shankar Aiyer felt that instead of concentrating on pricing, Prime Minister Narendra Modi should leverage his diplomatic position to network for energy security in the Asian region.

He said this region is the largest producer of oil and the largest consumer of oil and so the price of oil should be decided by an Asian index like the earlier Dubai index. Today it’s the price of Brent crude and West Texan index (Nymex) that decides the price of oil. He was the chief guest at a lively discussion on Paranjoy Guha-Thakurta’s book Gas Wars: Crony Capitalism and the Ambanis organised by the Press Club in Mumbai on Friday.

Mani Shankar Aiyer who was holding additional and temporary charge as minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas in the UPA 1 government said that the ministry of petroleum and natural gas should not be concerned with gas pricing but should be more concerned with energy security and technology for deep sea water drilling. He said when he was the minister his focus was on securing sources for oil and tried to push for the Iran-Pakistan- India pipeline. The burden of rising oil and diesel prices should be equitably borne by the four stakeholders -government, oil producers, oil refining companies and the rest by the consumers.

Mr Guha Thakurta said that his interest on how the country’s natural resources whether water, land, spectrum etc., being priced led him to write this book and he felt that the fight between the Ambani brothers was due to gas pricing.