The Ceraweek India Energy Forum 2018 in New Delhi on day two witnessed the presence of major oil companies in India and international markets, major oil merchants, banks, and global oil producers as well as ministers.

On the day two of the event, the most important development was the heads of the oil companies meeting the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Prime Minister urged the companies to review the current payment mechanism in order to provide relief to the Indian currency.

After the meet, Saudi Arabia's energy minister, Khalid Al Falih said the country went out of the way to make sure that the anxiety on the oil prices stayed to bare minimum, "Saudi Aramco is interested into invest into India’s fuel retail space and storage capacities."

Speaking at the sidelines of the event, Atul Arya, senior vice president of energy division at IHS Markit said he expects India and US to get into some sort of agreement, but an exemption from the Iran sanctions seems unlikely.

Ravi Narayanaswamy, vice president oil markets, IHS Markit expects the crude prices to go down further due to increase in supply from US from the start of 2019. However, Narayanaswamy said the demand from India is not going to slow down.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Paul Markwell, vice president, upstream oil & gas research and consulting, IHS Markit said the oil companies are concentrating on discipline, innovation, and getting the costs down. There is a sense of conservatism in the oil industry globally.

Vijay Swarup, vice president of research and development , ExxonMobil said the technology and options are the way going forward, "As we look at options into the market, the crude oil demand will continue to grow."

Speaking at length about the investment plans of the company and how India is a global engineering hub for Emerson Electric, Mike Train said country is destined to be the number two economy in the world.

First Published:Oct 15, 2018 7:00 PM IST