Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri to participate in 6th EEF Summit in Russia today

Sep 01,2021

Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri will lead an official and business delegation to Russia today to participate in the 6th Eastern Economic Forum EEF Summit in Vladivostok. This will be the first overseas visit of Mr Puri since assumption of the office as the Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually address the Plenary Session of the EEF Summit, in which President of Russia Vladimir Putin will be present. Mr Puri will be present at the EEF Summit during Prime Minister’s address. It may be recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Chief Guest at the EEF in 2019.

During his visit, Mr Puri will have meetings with Energy Minister of Russia Nikolay Shulginov to review bilateral energy cooperation in the energy sector and with Russian Minister for Development of Far East and Arctic Alexei Chekunkov to discuss the collaboration between Indian and Russian companies in that region.

Along with the Russian Minister of Energy, Mr Puri will co-chair India-Russia Business Dialogue, on the sidelines of EEF. He will also hold discussions with Russian Energy majors including Rosneft, GazpromNeft and Sibur.

India and Russia have robust and growing bilateral energy cooperation, which is a key pillar of Special and Privileged Strategic partnership between the two countries. Russia is the largest investment destination for the Indian oil and gas companies. Indian public sector companies have made investments in Russia of about 16 billion dollars including in the Far East and East Siberia in oil and gas assets such as Sakhalin-1, Vankor and Taas-Yuryakh. Russia is also the largest investor in India’s oil and gas sector and India is encouraging further investments by Russian companies in India’s oil and gas sector, especially in gas infrastructure and the Exploration and Production sector.