Govt aggregating PSUs’ demand to ensure long-term charters for Indian carriers: Puri

Mumbai: The government is aggregating PSUs’ cargo demand to ensure long-term charters for Indian carriers to reduce recurring cost of crude oil imports, Union Petroleum and Natural Gas minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Wednesday.

Addressing ‘India Maritime Week 2025’, Puri further said that the government is also advancing the ship owning and leasing entity model to boost domestic ownership.

“Oil marketing companies use vessels for crude imports. To reduce recurring cost through ownership of vessels (ships), we are aggregating PSU cargo demand to ensure long-term charters for Indian carriers, advancing the ship owning and leasing entity model to boost domestic ownership, establishing a maritime development fund, launching shipbuilding financial assistance,” he said.

Puri noted that energy and shipping are inseparable pillars of the economy and suddenly India’s energy sector is looking for vessels and there are only 2-3 countries (China, Japan and South Korea) which have that capacity to build ships.

“If you talk to them, their order books are filled for the next 6 years...most sensible course of action for us would be to tell them to come here and invest, may be few vessels could be build in Japan, South Korea.

“And then you start production here...all this requires prospective planning for 10-15 years,” he said.

The minister noted that earlier ship building was disbursed among many countries, which is not the case now.

“We have underestimated the importance of India’s external sector and shipping sector... Whenever India’s maritime strength has risen both the nation and world has gained,” he said. Puri pointed out that in the coming two decades, 25-30 per cent of the increase global energy demand of energy will come from India.

“The oil and gas sector alone accounts for 28 per cent of India’s trade by volume. And out of this entire trade only 20 per cent of cargo was carried by India-flagged and India-owned vessels... that is why we need to build more ships,” he said.