The Union minister for petroleum and natural gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, said if the crude oil prices go up, then that will have a very strong and adverse impact on the attempts at global economic recovery. Puri said this in view of the current Israel-Hamas conflict while speaking at the 14th edition of KPMG’s Innovation and Energy Conclave, on Wednesday.

“We are watching it on a real-time basis, and I am confident that India will navigate this both on availability and other factors,” the minister said on the speculation of the conflict’s impact on crude oil price.

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Puri said many important oil-producing countries are showing worrying signs, and availability and affordability of oil needs to be looked at.

“I think the global markets will factor all things into account and if the supply lines are not disrupted, hopefully, we will be able to navigate through everything. But this is not something on which I would like to speculate,” he said.

“India’s energy demand will continue to provide fuel for future economic growth, as it grows exponentially. India is the world’s third-largest oil consumer, third-largest LPG consumer, fourth-largest LNG importer, fourth-largest refiner, and the fourth-largest automobile market,” he observed.

“My belief is if you have a large amount of liquidity then high oil prices mean a problem,” he said.

It is worth highlighting that global crude oil prices moved in the northward direction after the latest round of Israel-Hamas conflict flared up. Apart from the conflict, key OPEC+ members, like Saudi Arabia and Russia, have continued with their policy of voluntary cuts in crude output.

Last week, Saudi Arabia announced that it would continue with a voluntary cut of one million barrels per day (bpd) until the end of 2023. Russia said it would keep a 300,000-bpd voluntary export curb until the end of December.

On Tuesday, Puri had said India is carefully watching the ongoing conflict between Israel-Hamas and added it would handle its energy needs with “maturity”.

“As far as the energy sector is concerned, the place where the action is taking place is in many respects the centre of global energy. We will watch very carefully,” the minister told reporters addressing the 26th Energy Technology Meet at New Delhi.

“We will navigate our way through this.” These kinds of uncertainties only encourage people to move into sustainable, cleaner fuels, he opined citing the Global Biofuel Alliance as an example.