India on the Global Market of Energy Resources: Issues of Energy Security

The purpose of the chapter is to find out the position and the role of the Indian Republic in the global market of energy resources. One of the most important and significant question of this chapter is the issue of energy security and independence of India in the context of national economic security. The authors tried not only to determine the position and the role of the Indian Republic on the global market of energy resources but also to identify the sharpest and the most cornerstone issues of the Indian dependence on energy import in the context of economic and energy security. The 1990s in India are known as the period of economic reforms, that have been aimed at liberalization of the Indian economy (especially, foreign trade and the sphere of foreign direct investment) and implementation of economic transformation and orientation on the market basis. The key idea of economic reforms was to decrease government control and regulation under the market. At the same time, implementation of FDI policy liberalization allowed to attract foreign capitals to almost all the sectors of Indian economic activity, to set up joint ventures, increase the level of employment, develop the basis of infrastructure transformation and so on. For instance, the “Mining and petroleum and natural gas” sector was liberalized for FDI, and the level of entrance to the sector was almost totally 100% under automatic and government route (except petroleum refining by the Public Sector Undertakings (PSU), without any disinvestment or dilution of domestic equity in the existing PSUs—49% under automatic route). According to the last published data by “BP”, India took 5.4% of the global consumption of crude oil in 2019 (by thou. barrels daily), took 7.9% of the global import of crude oil in 2019 (thou. barrels daily), took 11.8% of the global coal consumption in 2019 (by exajoules—EJ) and 16.1% of the global import of coal in 2019 (by EJ). All these indicators tell us about the certain dependence of India on mineral resources and import supply, and interrelation with the issues of economic and energy security. So, in the context of IEA prospects, it is rather important to understand the current situation of the global market of energy resources, the position of India on it and the importance of energy and economic security. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.