What Could Have Been Done to Avert a Cooking Gas Crisis — And Wasn’t, A Story of Missed Opportunities and Strategic Failure
As millions of Indian households grapple with the latest spike in cooking gas prices and the anxiety of supply disruptions, it is worth asking a fundamental question: how did we get here? How did a nation with such vast ambitions become so dangerously dependent on imported energy that a conflict thousands of miles away can send immediate shockwaves through every kitchen? The answer, as a former Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas reveals in a candid reflection, lies in a story of missed opportunities, strategic shortsightedness, and a failure to prioritize long-term energy security over short-term procurement.
When the UPA government was formed in May 2004, I initially resisted the offer to take charge of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG). I had long considered it a notorious den of bribery and patronage, a ministry used to reward second-rate politicians and their clients. But when I was overruled and given “temporary” charge, I was pleasantly surprised. Through briefings by senior officers and public-sector oil executives, I discovered that the ministry had a far more significant role to play than I had imagined. It was a key pillar of “national security,” responsible for “energy security” to complement the external affairs ministry’s “geopolitical security” and the finance and commerce ministries’ “economic security.” It was a revelation.
At that time, two decades ago, India’s dependence on oil and gas imports was already a worrying 70 per cent of our total requirements. Today, that figure has ballooned to nearly 90 per cent. We are more vulnerable than ever. I was deeply impressed by the economist Vijay Kelkar’s prescient observation that natural gas would be to the 21st century what petroleum had been to the 20th, coal to the 19th, and wood to the 18th. This insight shaped my entire approach. I focused my energies, and those of the ministry, the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH), and the public-sector oil companies, on the critical issue of energy security. This required a two-track approach: one domestic, one external.
On the domestic front, we needed to unlock India’s own vast, untapped reserves. This was a technological challenge of the highest order. Onshore, vast quantities of oil and gas lay trapped hundreds of metres below the surface, beneath the volcanic and lava-rock laden “Deccan trap.” Drilling through this geological formation was a problem that had only been tackled on a much smaller scale in Colorado. We needed to build a global network of research institutions that could provide the technology to reach these reserves. Offshore, the challenge was even greater. Our principal source of offshore energy, Bombay High, discovered in 1973, was in relatively shallow waters. But the future lay in deep-water exploration. We needed to penetrate some 10,000 metres in the Arabian Sea, a depth that dwarfed the 150 metres typical of the North Sea. The promise was there, as companies like Exxon were drilling at similar depths in the Gulf of Mexico. Wherever I travelled, I sought to bring into our orbit the technological institutions that could make this happen. I believed, and still believe, that technology held the potential to yield abundant domestic supplies of oil and gas.
Simultaneously, I pursued an aggressive external strategy, often against the objections of both the finance and external affairs ministries. We were competing fiercely with China for access to foreign exploratory fields, and we could not afford to lose. Our focus was on our abundantly petroleum-endowed proximate neighbourhood: Iran, the Gulf states, and the energy heartland of Central Asia, especially around the Caspian Sea. I travelled to Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, and even landlocked Uzbekistan. I visited exploration sites and pipelines, tracing the route from Baku on the Caspian to the terminal at Ceyhan on the eastern Mediterranean in Turkey.
I even overcame my deep instinctive dislike of Israel to explore a potentially game-changing option. The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline brought Central Asian oil to the Mediterranean. The idea was to extend it further, through Ashkelon and down to the port of Eilat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba. This would allow Central Asian oil and gas to reach the Indian Ocean directly, bypassing the choke point of the Strait of Hormuz entirely. Similarly, I explored parallel pipelines from North Africa that could bypass the choke point of the Bab-al-Mandab strait on the Red Sea. These were not pipe dreams; they were concrete strategic initiatives designed to insulate India from the very kind of geopolitical disruption we are witnessing today.
Above all, I pitched two pipeline projects that I believed were essential for India’s energy future. The first was a pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran through Pakistan to energy-and-coal deficient Rajasthan. This was a project of immense potential, one that could have transformed the energy landscape of western India. The second was a pipeline from Sittwe (Akyab) off the Myanmar coast, where GAIL had discovered natural gas. The plan was to bring this gas through Cox’s Bazar and Jessore in Bangladesh to supply the upcoming giant petrochemical complex in Haldia, West Bengal.
Little of this grand vision fructified. I was relieved of my “temporary” charge of the ministry within 20 months. My successors, for reasons of their own, did not prioritize energy security through either the domestic or the external routes. They did not pursue the technological partnerships to unlock the Deccan trap or the deep waters of the Arabian Sea. They did not fight the diplomatic battles to secure foreign exploration blocks or build the strategic pipelines that would have diversified our sources and bypassed choke points. Instead, they concentrated on a simpler, more comfortable path: procuring as much petroleum and gas as could be procured from the open international market. They treated energy as a commodity to be bought, not a strategic asset to be secured.
This fundamental choice—to prioritize short-term procurement over long-term energy security—is what has brought us to the present cooking gas crisis. Over the past two decades, our external dependence has climbed from 70% to 90%. We are now the world’s second-largest consumer of LPG cooking gas, consuming 3 million tonnes every month. Sixty per cent of this is imported. We have built an economy, and a household dependency, on a foundation of sand.
The warning signs were there. Three years ago, in 2023, the external affairs minister’s aggressive posture towards Israel and the sharp Israeli response in Gaza should have been a clear signal. Any ministry with a genuine focus on energy security would have seen the potential for regional escalation and taken steps to stockpile reserves, to secure alternative supplies, to activate contingency plans. Instead, MoPNG appears to have been treated as a passive observer, reacting only now, far too late, by invoking the Essential Commodities Act when the crisis is already upon us.
The present crisis is not an act of God. It is not an unavoidable consequence of global geopolitics. It is a direct result of a twenty-year failure of strategic vision. We had the plans. We had the opportunities. We had the technological pathways and the diplomatic options. What we lacked was the sustained political will to see them through. And now, every household that struggles to afford a cylinder of cooking gas is paying the price for that failure. The story of what could have been done to avert this crisis, and what was not done, should serve as a permanent, searing reminder that energy security is national security, and it cannot be left to chance.
Questions and Answers
Q1: According to the former minister, what was the two-track approach needed to ensure India’s energy security two decades ago?
A1: The two-track approach was:
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Domestic: Using a global network of research institutions to develop technology to drill through the “Deccan trap” for onshore reserves and at extreme depths offshore in the Arabian Sea.
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External: Securing India’s own foreign exploratory fields (especially in Central Asia and the Gulf) and building strategic pipelines to bypass choke points like the Strait of Hormuz.
Q2: What were the two key pipeline projects the former minister pitched to improve energy security?
A2: The two key projects were:
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A pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran through Pakistan to energy-deficient Rajasthan.
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A pipeline from Myanmar (Sittwe) through Bangladesh to supply natural gas to the petrochemical complex in Haldia, West Bengal.
Q3: What was the game-changing option involving Israel that the former minister explored to bypass the Strait of Hormuz?
A3: The idea was to extend the existing Baku-Ceyhan pipeline (bringing Central Asian oil to the Mediterranean) further, through Ashkelon to the port of Eilat on the Gulf of Aqaba. This would allow Central Asian oil and gas to reach the Indian Ocean directly, completely bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.
Q4: According to the article, what fundamental strategic failure by the former minister’s successors led to the current cooking gas crisis?
A4: His successors did not prioritize long-term “energy security.” Instead of pursuing domestic exploration and strategic external assets (pipelines and fields), they focused on the simpler path of procuring oil and gas from the open international market. This increased import dependence from 70% to 90%, leaving India dangerously vulnerable to global disruptions.
Q5: What specific warning sign from three years ago should have prompted action to avert the crisis?
A5: The article points to the 2023 aggressive posture towards Israel and the subsequent Israeli response in Gaza. A ministry focused on energy security would have seen the potential for regional escalation and proactively stockpiled reserves and secured alternative supplies.
Instead, the response came far too late.
