Boosting oil & gas production, green H2 promotion on top of agenda

New Delhi: Boosting domestic oil and gas production, promoting green hydrogen and increasing ethanol use will be the key priorities of the government, oil minister Hardeep Puri has said. Profitable state-run oil companies like BPCL will not be divested, he added.

"There is an essential continuity of what we have done in the last three years," Puri told a news conference after taking charge as the oil minister for a second time.

Puri first assumed charge of the oil ministry in July 2021 in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and steered the sector through a stretched global energy crisis, triggered by the post-pandemic economic recovery and the wars. "Amidst all those challenges, we have performed rather well on availability, affordability and sustainability," he said. Global energy markets have now returned to normal.