Govt. to seek Iraq crude

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, NOV. 25. The Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mr. Ram Naik, today confirmed that India would seek crude from Iraq in lieu of foodgrains. As Iraq was under U.N. sanctions, India had sought clearance from the world body.

Mr. Naik told presspersons that the issue would be discussed at the meeting of the Indo-Iraq Joint Commission which beginning here on Monday. Preparatory to that, he had a meeting with the Iraqi Oil Minister, Mr. Amer Mohammed Rashid, today.

The preliminary discussions were on the coming five- day visit of the Iraqi Vice-President, Mr. Taha Yassin. Mr. Rashid said India was a strategic partner of Iraq and the visit of the Vice- President was aimed at further consolidating the bilateral relationship. ``We also had some discussions on possible trade of crude and feel there are immense possibilities of enhancing it,'' Mr. Rashid added.

May approach OPEC

In another development, India, faced with a whopping oil import bill of $17.5 billion (over Rs. 80,000 crores) during the current fiscal year, is planning to approach the members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with requests for special discounts and deferred payment terms.

Mr. Naik said the proposal was being finalised and would be sent to the OPEC next week. He had recently met eight of the 11 members and apprised them of the difficulties being faced by the developing countries on account of the unusually high international oil prices.

The Indian proposal would basically seek a special price or trade discount for developing countries with the assurance that the oil so procured would be for consumption and not for on-ward trading. Another suggestion would be for a deferred payment facility. ``What we are seeking is a three-month credit period instead of spot payment,'' Mr. Naik said. Finally, India would also suggest to the cash-rich OPEC members to extend concessional loans to the developing countries so as to help them tide over the high import bills.

About the likely future price of international crude, the Minister said that winter purchases by the Western countries were practically over and there was no shortage of oil in the global markets. Therefore, the view within the OPEC was that international crude prices might hover around $24-28 a barrel.

Later, addressing a conference on petroleum geo- chemistry and exploration in the Afro-Asian region, Mr. Naik suggested a world petroleum economic order which would balance the interests of both the producers and consumers. Pointing out that the very high level of prices had created tremendous problems for the developing countries, he said this would impact the economic growth in these countries which in turn would have its own consequences.

Talking about the Indian scenario, Mr. Naik said as against a consumption of 100 million tonnes of crude annually, domestic production had stagnated at about 32 million tonnes for the past few years. He, therefore, called for greater exploration efforts and said that against the estimated hydro-carbon reserves of 28 billion tonnes in India, only about 6.85 billion tonnes had been discovered.

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