Expanding energy ties, buying more US oil on Modi-Trump meet agenda

Expanding energy partnership, including purchase of more oil from the United States and American participation in small modular reactors (SMRs) in India, is expected to figure high on the agenda of the meeting between PM Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump in the White House on February 13, said people familiar with the matter.

The meeting is also expected to focus on the India-US defence industry partnership including GE engines and review of the US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), taking forward from where the Biden administration left, they said. Modi will travel to the US from France, where he has been invited for the AI Summit. ET was the first to report last week that the PM will club his US visit with France.

India has increased oil imports from the US last year and the volume is expected to go up further following Trump's announcement to maximise US oil and gas production. Trump has promised to fill up strategic reserves and export American energy across the world. "There is a possibility of more energy purchase between India and the US," petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri told media persons on the sidelines of an event last month.


Meanwhile, India is expecting a thaw in US-Russia ties for unhindered supply of Russian discounted oil to maintain global oil prices. Russia's energy minister met Puri in Delhi on Tuesday to discuss oil supplies including long-term contracts and future collaboration. Besides traditional energy, civil nuclear energy partnership could get a definitive push with the Modi-Trump summit, according to people in the know. The US is keen to collaborate in the SMR sector in India, they said, adding that the prospects of collaboration in the civil nuclear sector have brightened with the US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security removing three Indian organisations from its Entity List - Indian Rare Earths, Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Centre and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. The list comprises individuals and organisations that are subject to export restrictions and licensing requirements. While the proposal for a mini trade deal or a limited scope trade deal is on the agenda for next week's meeting, Trump has already indicated that he would encourage India to purchase US manufactured defence items including fighter jets. India, on its part, will ask the Trump administration to expedite collaboration for GE engines, said the people cited earlier. A team from India is scheduled to visit the US for talks to complete the GE-414 engine deal by the end of March.

In their phone call last week Trump and Modi discussed the bilateral relationship, "including in the areas of technology, trade, investment, energy and defence".