While geopolitical conflicts kept the world's energy markets in a state of near-permanent anxiety, Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Friday, September 25, 2026, that India had seen the turbulence coming — and had quietly built its defences long before the shocks arrived.

What Puri told the PAFI Forum

Speaking at the 13th Annual Forum 2026 organised by the Petroleum and Natural Gas industry body PAFI India, Minister Puri addressed a session titled 'India 3.0: Engaging for Growth in a Disrupted World' — a frame that captures exactly where the country sees itself: a major economy no longer merely reacting to external forces, but actively engineering its own insulation from them. He credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi with taking 'far-sighted decisions' to strengthen energy security and build resilience against global supply disruptions, protecting Indian energy consumers from price and energy shocks.

India's crude import strategy since 2022

The claim has a documented policy trail. After the Russia-Ukraine conflict erupted in 2022, India moved swiftly to diversify its crude sourcing — picking up discounted Russian barrels while simultaneously deepening long-term supply contracts with the United States, UAE and other producers. The government coordinated limited releases from its Strategic Petroleum Reserves, the underground cavern network commissioned in the 2010s, to cushion domestic price pressures at critical moments.

That twin-track approach — buy smart on global markets, hold a backstop at home — is now a recognisable feature of India's energy doctrine. With crude import dependence still exceeding 80 percent of total consumption, the stakes of getting it wrong remain enormous.

Strategic Petroleum Reserves: the quiet anchor

India's strategic reserve infrastructure, built across underground rock caverns, was designed precisely for scenarios like the ones the world has lived through since 2022 — sudden supply disruptions, sanctions-driven rerouting, and price spikes that can ripple through an import-dependent economy within weeks. The government has approved further phases of the programme, with progress on the next generation of storage caverns a key indicator that industry and Parliament will watch.

The forum appearance signals that the Ministry intends to press this resilience narrative into the policy conversation at home and among international energy partners. Energy security — once a quiet infrastructure file — has become a front-line economic argument.

The bigger picture: India 3.0 and the global disruption era

The session title 'India 3.0' is itself a statement of posture: a country that has graduated from reactive import dependency toward a more confident, multipolar energy engagement — signing deals across the Gulf, the Americas, and with sanctioned producers, while scaling domestic renewables in parallel. Minister Puri's message to the assembled professionals was that this multi-vector strategy is not improvisation. It was planned, it was early, and it is working.

The proof will lie in what comes next: new long-term supply agreements, parliamentary scrutiny of the petroleum ministry's storage and refining budget, and whether India's consumers actually emerge from the next global shock with bills that hold steady. The architecture is in place. The test is always the next disruption.