IndianOil’s key role in the nation’s journey to fulfil bold energy goals

As India Energy Week 2025 gets underway, Arvinder Singh Sahney, Chairman and Managing Director, IndianOil, discusses exclusively with Energy Connects how his company is impacting the country’s energy transition journey and embracing advanced technology to drive its sustainability and efficiency agenda.

How is IndianOil helping advance India’s energy security strategy while playing a leading role in the global energy transition?

India is set to witness the highest growth in energy demand globally through the years till 2050 and there is no doubt that it will play a crucial role in the global energy transition journey going forward. It strives to strike a balance between conventional energy options on one hand and, on the other hand, addressing climate change. So, while new and low-carbon energy sources such as renewable energy, hydrogen, and biofuels are expected to experience the fastest growth, the fundamental need for stable and reliable energy ensures that fossil fuels will also remain crucial and require scale-up.  

IndianOil’s growth strategy is full aligned with India’s strategic focus and, therefore, our growth blueprint consists of investment plans across the energy spectrum. With oil demand in India set to increase from over 5 MBPD currently to over 7 MBPD by 2030, we are committed to ensuring uninterrupted supplies of refined petroleum products and are expanding our refining capacity to over 107 MMTPA by 2030. 

Moreover, to tackle the expected toning down in gasoline demand growth beyond 2030, due to increasing penetration of EVs and biofuel, we are investing in petrochemicals in a big way and plan to take up our petrochemical’s intensity to 15% by 2030 from 6.1% at present.

India is one of the fastest growing gas markets in the world and we will continue to fuel India’s ambitions regarding natural gas and aim to increase our gas sales by three to four folds by the end of the decade. To ensure gas supply security we are targeting a well-balanced long-term and spot LNG portfolio mix. At the same time, we are investing across clean and green energy sources be it biofuels, renewable power, green hydrogen, electric mobility. 

IndianOil is fully committed to India’s biofuel vision and sees this as an area of immense opportunity. Today we are in full readiness to meet the Government of India’s mandate for increasing ethanol blending in petrol to 20% by 2025-26. IndianOil also is working to lead India’s nascent yet highly promising SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) journey. Further, we have commissioned 37 compressed biogas (CBG) plants to date under SATAT (Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation) sScheme, driving India closer towards a viable sustainable mobility solution.

Going forward, we plan to build a significant renewable portfolio and have recently incorporated Terra Clean Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary company dedicated to ventures in the realm of low carbon, novel, eco-friendly energy solutions.  

Looking ahead, we envision an expanded role in India’s energy sector and increase our contribution to India’s energy sector from 9% to 12.5% by 2050. In line with India’s shift toward a more diversified energy mix, IndianOil's portfolio will also become more holistic, with a significant share of natural gas, renewables, and biofuels, alongside crude oil.

Modernisation and digitalisation will go hand in hand with our expansion drive. For one, in line with meeting our Net Zero 2046 operational emissions target, an overhaul in the way our refineries consume energy will be fundamental, entailing a transition to green hydrogen, renewable and enhanced use of natural gas.

How is IndianOil embracing artificial intelligence and data to enhance efficiency and sustainability?

Digital interventions are being implemented in a structured manner around four value drivers of High Impact Analytics, Emerging Tech Platforms, Custom Tools & Solutions, and Game Changers. 

Today, more than 100 initiatives are under various stages of implementation to meet evolving customer needs to stay ahead of the curve in a rapidly changing energy landscape.

We are using AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine learning) to make our intricate and complex supply chain robust and efficient. We have implemented an Integrated Planning Tool (IPT) which is equipped with AI/ML capabilities, thus optimising IndianOil’s extensive supply chain by integrating operations planning across refineries, petrochemical complexes, and distribution networks.

What does IndianOil hope for from this edition of India Energy Week?

The Indian energy sector is at the cusp of a transformation as it leads global energy demand growth.

A forum like India Energy Week, where industry, academia and policy makers come together from all over the world, would be the perfect place where I think key strands of this journey would be laid out, be it in terms of start of dialogue, ideas for new partnership, showcasing of new technologies and new business mode and sustainable solutions.