Swaminathan Aiyar on Oil Investment

Swaminathan Aiyar cautions against recent spate of energy agreements by ONGC and other entities.

His reason is that signing contracts with counteries which have a not so impeccable record of honoring them will not achieve the purpose of future energy security and independence for which these agreements are beings signed in the first place.

This goes for oil which makes us liable to blackmail from counteries from Saudi Arabia to Nigria, as well as, for nuclear energy, which notwithstanding current bonhomie with US can be used as a pressure against India


He argues, instead, to sign contract only with those counteries which have a record of honuring commitments om we can trust or to buy oil from the producers as Japan does.

I will agree with this, with only one caveat, which is that as far energy is concenred, there is no arrangement which is going to provide 100% guarantee, that is why exploration of lternate energy is even more important for India from strategic point of view.