An air of turbulence hangs heavy over the global petrol industry. Donald Trump has whipped up a storm once again after the US President slapped onerous sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil - two of Russia's energy giants - sending refiners in India and China scurrying to find alternate sources of crude oil and head off the threat of crippling levies on their petro-product exports to the US and Europe.

India has been diversifying its sources of crude oil in an attempt to de-risk its energy-buying strategy. Until 2022, India had primarily bought its crude oil from West Asia, which meant that it had become vulnerable to precipitate shocks in the region arising from political and economic developments.

India has consistently been looking to widen its options in the global crude oil market. Just recently, petroleum minister Hardeep Puri announced plans to buy crude oil from Brazil, opening a new vista of opportunity to beef up its energy security. "India and Brazil have agreed to expand their partnership in oil exploration and production, with Indian upstream oil companies like ONGC expected to participate in upcoming offshore projects in Brazil," Puri said.

The minister's statement assumes great significance as it comes amid India's deepening dilemma over its strategy to ensure its energy security. The inescapable truth is that the contribution of domestically-produced crude in the basket of petroleum products consumed and exported has been steadily shrinking and has now touched a low of 11.5 per cent, which means that the country's crude import dependency is about to touch 90 per cent.

Brazil and India are the founder members of the BRICS, which is a group of emerging economies that came together to create a political and diplomatic coordination forum for countries from the Global South on a range of diverse issues. The other principal nations are Russia, China and South Africa. The acronym was coined by British economist Jim O'Neill and the idea caught fire after his employer Goldman Sachs chose to flag the concept of a group of emerging markets in 2001 that could potentially grow into a global force to reckon with. The group has since expanded to 11 nations from the original five with the inclusion of countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Iran and Indonesia. BRICS aims to increase cooperation among members to promote economic and geopolitical integration and to counterbalance Western-dominated global institutions.

BRICS stoked controversy recently when it began deliberations on a proposal to fight the dominance of the US dollar in world trade by encouraging trade settlements in local currency in order to minimise the impact of economic sanctions and trade tariffs by the western democracies. The move drew a scathing attack from President Trump who saw this as a master plan to diminish the dollar's significance in world trade. He has vowed to crush nations that flirt with the idea of a BRICS currency or any other move designed to undermine the US dollar.

"BRICS was set up to hurt us, BRICS was set up to degenerate our dollar and take our dollar, take it off as the standard," Trump told his cabinet in July and then went on to threaten 100% tariffs on BRICS nations unless they committed to never create a "a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty US Dollar."

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been a strong proponent of a BRICS currency - an idea that has the backing of Russia but virtually none of the other members. For all practical purposes, the currency initiative has been stalled.

But Brazil can now use another weapon in its arsenal: its oil. Lula can now play this card to undermine any US plan to grab the Indian market by forcing Delhi to buy its crude oil instead of Putin's. Brazil has significant proven reserves and a high production output that makes it the largest oil producer in South America. The country is among the world's top oil producers and has been a net exporter since 2011. In 2024, Brazil's average crude oil output was over 3.36 million barrels per day. It is on track to become an even more significant player in the global oil industry with some forecasts predicting it will become the world's fourth-largest oil producer in the next few years.

This brings us to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's energy security dilemma. India is a very large country geographically with fairly large sedimentary basins. The state-owned domestic companies have been drilling in search of oil and the number of wells they drilled must be close to a world record. ONGC drilled 578 wells in FY25, which is the highest number in the past 35 years. The total includes 109 exploratory and 469 development wells. It also drilled 544 wells in FY24, 463 wells in FY23 and 434 wells in FY22. Oil India Ltd, the second-largest upstream oil company in FY24, drilled 61 wells, the highest number since its inception, which included 17 exploration and 44 development wells.

These two Indian oil giants are not entirely at fault for their failure to discover oil and gas in the wells they drill. Both companies had periods of success in the past. India's sedimentary basins are not known to be rich in hydrocarbon reserves. No known geologist has ever challenged this assessment. Should India persist with the drilling strategy it has been pursuing so far? The political leadership must now grapple with this burning issue.

A company like ONGC is now rated among the largest drillers of dry wells in the world. ONGC cannot be accused of recklessness or profligacy; the system enjoins it push on with its drilling plans. Among state-owned companies, ONGC must rank among one of the biggest owners of drilling rigs. It cannot keep its trained drillers and other related staff idle as this could blow up into a politically-sensitive issue. Nor can it afford to keep the rigs idle. At the same time, it must drill in any location only after checking the prospectivity of the area. The company has a large pool of geologists and geophysicists. Obviously, their prospectivity assessments have been wide of the mark.

Perhaps it is time that a portion of the large fleet of rigs can be deployed overseas if India is able to corner exploration acreages. For this, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas has to identify countries where such exploration activities are possible. Political intervention at the level of prime minister can influence this strategy.

I would not like to presume that I can identify these nations. Russia is one nation with which India already has some arrangement. Prime Minister Modi has very friendly relations with President Putin but he has now been effectively cornered by President Trump and the EU. It is not known how and when Putin will react. For the time being, Russia looks a difficult place for India to strike new business deals. But there are other countries where India must explore opportunities in the upstream space - and the initiative must be spearheaded by the country's political leadership.