For India, a closer relationship with the U.S., Japan, and Australia should not only be seenin defence terms — it could help secure its energy supplies

Four corners of a good deal

have increased by as much as 56 per cent ina single year. India also imports 40 percent of its uranium. And it is increasinglyimporting natural gas.

Import-dependent energy policies arealways fraught with risk, and India’s is noexception. Many, if not most, of its hydro-carbon imports come from unstable or fa-raway regions; two thirds of its oil comesfrom West Asia, and distant Venezuela isalso a key source of oil. Additionally, Indiasees great potential in gas-rich CentralAsia. However, because Pakistan deniesIndia transit rights to Afghanistan, Indialacks direct access to the region.

Though New Delhi has scored somesuccesses in Central Asia — including ura-nium cooperation with Kazakhstan — ithas largely lost out on many opportunities,even while China has seized them. NewDelhi seeks to enhance its access to Cen-tral Asia by developing the Chabahar port

ter position New Delhi to negotiate work-able LNG agreements with Canberra.

Additionally, India could leverage acloser relationship with Australia to en-gage more deeply with the latter’s neigh-bour, Indonesia, which provides Indiamore than 60 per cent of its current coalimports. This would help advance NewDelhi’s “Act East” policy. Cultivating deep-er energy relationships with these two rel-atively close-by Southeast Asian countries— an objective that the quadrilateral rela-tionship can help bring about — wouldease the burden on India’s naval forces ofprotecting energy assets in areas more far-flung than Southeast Asia.

Additionally, Indonesia and Australia —despite their proximity to the South ChinaSea and their susceptibility to Islamistmilitancy, including attacks by the IslamicState — are far more stable than West Asia,which would ease concerns about the se-curity of Indian energy assets and importsoriginating in these two countries.

More broadly, for India, the quadrilater-al relationship could enhance energy en-gagement with the U.S., Japan, and Austra-lia across the board. These three countrieshave signed on to the India-led Interna-tional Solar Alliance. Japan and India areofftakers for U.S. LNG projects. And allfour countries have an interest in energyinfrastructure development.

In recent years, a major roadblock to thequadrilateral relationship was Australia,which withdrew from the arrangement in2013, citing concerns about China’s reac-tion. Today, however, Canberra has a dif-ferent government and has expressed sup-port for resurrecting it. For New Delhi,reviving the quadrilateral relationshipmay not make much sense from a nationalsecurity perspective. However, viewedthrough the lens of energy security, it ar-guably makes very good sense.

(Michael Kugelman is the SeniorAssociate for South Asia at the

Woodrow Wilson International Centerfor Scholars in Washington, D.C.

Raymond Vickery is a Global Fellow atthe Woodrow Wilson Center; a senior

adviser at Albright Stonebridge Group;of counsel at Hogan Lovells; and aformer U.S. Assistant Secretary of

Commerce.)

in southern Iran; however, so long as Af-ghanistan remains unstable, access toCentral Asia via Chabahar will be difficult.Afghanistan’s security problems alsomake the TAPI gas pipeline an unlikelyprospect.

Meanwhile, the lifting of sanctions onIran following its nuclear deal with theU.S. opens up energy possibilities for In-dia, which has reduced its imports fromIran in recent years. However, New Delhifaces serious competition from other im-porters rushing to cash in.

Enter the quadAustralia can provide immense energy

benefits to India. It already provides sizea-ble quantities of coal. The two sides haveexplored uranium cooperation. And mostimportantly, Australia is a top global pro-ducer of LNG. In recent weeks, New Delhihas telegraphed a strong desire to capital-ise on Australia’s gas riches. With LNGprices having fallen by 75 per cent since2014, the timing could not be more ripe toexplore deeper energy cooperation — par-ticularly given the volatile location of Qa-tar, the top current source of India’s LNGimports. The quadrilateral would boostIndia-Australia relations overall, and bet-

On March 2,speaking at aconference inNew Delhi, thehead of UnitedStates Pacific

Command issued a clarion call for morerobust U.S.-India cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. Admiral Harry Harris observedthat India is “beginning to exert its leader-ship” in the region, which he referred to asthe “Indo-Asia-Pacific”. His appeal forpartnership was strikingly direct. “We areready for you,” he declared. “We need you.Let’s be ambitious together.”

Of particular note was Admiral Harris’spitch for greater cooperation between theU.S., India, Japan, and Australia. The U.S.-Japan-India trilateral has gained momen-tum in recent years, with regular meetingsand a variety of collective exercises. Con-versely, the four-way arrangement hasmade much less progress and has largelybeen limited to some meetings and navalexercises several years back.

This quadrilateral relationship is typi-cally depicted in defence terms. It is un-doubtedly a national security-based ar-rangement. It is therefore a sensitivematter, particularly given the message itsends to Beijing. This helps explain whyIndian officials have not reacted warmly toAdmiral Harris’s proposal.

However, something significant getslost amid all this loud talk of national secu-rity and China concerns: a closer relation-ship between these four key democraciescan also boost India’s tenuous energy se-curity in a big way.

Growing energy appetiteIndia’s yawning energy needs are well-

known. Economists say that for Indian ec-onomic growth to return to double digits,energy supplies must increase by three tofour times over the next few decades. Def-icits, however, are immense — including,for electricity alone, peak demand deficitsof 25 per cent in some southern States.

This helps explain India’s addiction tooverseas energy. Eighty per cent of its oil isimported, as is about 20 per cent of its coal— though in recent years, coal imports

“Economists say that for Indian economic growth to return to double digits, energysupplies must increase by three to four times over the next few decades.” Pictureshows a coal mine in Meghalaya. — PHOTO: AFP

MICHAEL KUGELMAN

& RAYMOND VICKERY

Australia can provide largeenergy benefits to India. Italready provides sizeablequantities of coal and is atop global producer of LNG