The Big Oil Game

“Oh Indians, Wake Up….Wake Up and Conserve the OIL
Or You would find it difficult to live on this soil
So, Toil Toil and Toil
To Conserve the OIL!”

The above is a quotation I had written to start my speech while participating in a declamation in an Oil Conservation Week in the school.
It got refreshed in my mind with the recent news regarding how an embargo by US on Iran can disturb India with regards to its oil import. Also, I have had a few discussions with my friends on the same.

India is one of the main importers of Oil and our over-dependence on the same is a problem for our economy. With tensions rising between America and Iran, it does not bode well for us. Iran has said that they would block the Strait of Hormuz in case the USA continues with its sanctions. EU has already said that they would put a ban to oil import on Iran. The interesting point is that one fifth of world’s oil flows through this passage of which India is a major part.
This brings to fore a big game that US is construed to be playing with regards to its policy for countries like Iraq and Libya. This meddling in affairs of other countries some times on the pretext of biological weapons or human rights violations or dictatorships, has led to many unanswered questions and intentions of west comes under the scrutiny. Although we cannot change their policy, but we can definitely try to strategize and be prepared for any drastic situations.

In India, we have faced around 11 Oil price hikes since June 2010. For how long can we hide behind the excuse that “global forces play a big role in this”. Maybe we need a more aggressive approach to finding new sources of oil in our country or pursue good relationships with more and more countries.Energy is a big need and our move towards Nuclear energy is a step in the right direction.

We need to keep on looking for alternatives as in one way of the other we might get affected by the world politics.

Also, it becomes incumbent on each one of us to save each drop that we can. Each drop matters then !