The first two days of India Energy Week or IEW 2025 have whizzed by with several aspects of the event's core theme - reimagining the future of energy in India and the world - discussed widely at various panel sessions and forums.
The event was inaugurated on Tuesday by the country's Prime Minister Narendra Modi who noted in his opening remarks that India's wider energy sector ambitions would depend on "key five pillars" - namely "resource availability, a skilled workforce, economic strength, political stability, and strategic geography."
He also reiterated his pledge of more than doubling India's current renewable energy capacity from its current level to 500GW by 2030. Here's The Oilholic's full report for Forbes on the opening remarks.
The event also saw several energy ministers from Brazil to Qatar hobnob with their counterparts and delegates on the first day, indicative of the interest in India's energy sector.
Among them, rather curiously, was UK's eco-zealot minister Ed Miliband who attempted to portray to a foreign audience that he actually cared about the North Sea calling his country a "proud oil and gas producer." But - with his policy actions implying the exact opposite - was widely and rightly ridiculed back home.
Yours truly also kicked into gear on Day II by moderating a leadership panel session titled "Bridging the energy transition's investment gaps."
Eminent panelists included Bhupinder Singh Bhalla, Former Secretary of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Roberto Bocca, Head, Centre for Energy and Minerals, World Economic Forum, Hitesh Vaid, CFO of Cairn Oil and Gas, and Katan Hirachand, Chief Executive & Chief Country Officer - India, Societe Generale. (See below right for details, click on image to enlarge)
Elsewhere on day II, other sessions touched on the reliable role of gas in the energy mix and discussed the familiar topic of technology as an efficiency enabler and facilitator of faster decarbonisation.
Various aspects of India's energy ecosystem, its policy framework and investment drive were also examined, and how the global south could perhaps take some learnings from the country's approach over the last decade. That's all for now folks. There's plenty more to come from IEW 2025. So keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'!
