Puri vows to keep LPG affordable for Ujjwala families amid ‘historic’ US import agreement

New Delhi: India has signed its first year-long agreement to import liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from the United States, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri announced on Monday, describing the move as a significant step in strengthening the country’s energy security.

The minister emphasised that India is among the world’s largest and fastest-growing LPG markets, and said the new arrangement represents a major milestone in the country’s efforts to diversify its supply base.

Revealing the development in a social media post, Puri hailed the agreement as a “historic first” for India’s LPG market. He said, "A historic first! One of the largest and the world's fastest-growing LPG market opens up to the United States. In our endeavour to provide secure, affordable supplies of LPG to the people of India, we have been diversifying our LPG sourcing. In a significant development, Indian PSU oil companies have successfully concluded a 1-year deal for imports of around 2.2 MTPA LPG".

He added that the newly concluded US import deal is a further demonstration of the government’s efforts to secure reliable and affordable energy supplies for the country.

According to Puri, public sector oil companies have finalised a contract for the import of around 2.2 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LPG for the 2026 contract year. The volume amounts to nearly 10 per cent of India’s annual LPG imports and will be sourced from the US Gulf Coast. He noted that it will be the first structured long-term contract involving US LPG for India.

Puri said the purchase had been benchmarked to Mount Belvieu, a key global pricing point for LPG, and added that teams from Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) had travelled to the United States in recent months for talks with major American suppliers.

The minister underlined the government’s commitment to keeping LPG affordable for households, particularly women enrolled under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana. He noted that despite global LPG prices rising by more than 60 per cent last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ensured Ujjwala consumers continued to pay only Rs 500–550 per cylinder, compared with an actual cost of over Rs 1,100.

To shield consumers from volatile international markets, the government absorbed a burden of more than Rs 40,000 crore during the year, Puri said.

ANI