Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the country's largest oil refiner, will aggregate the petroleum fuel demand of small island nations, which will help lower their fuel import costs.
The International Solar Alliance (ISA) has asked IOC to study petroleum imports of 37 such countries, ISA Director General Upendra Tripathy said, as quoted by Mint.
The island countries will use the savings from lower fuel import costs to establish solar power projects, Tripathy told the paper.
70 countries have signed and ratified the ISA framework agreement, while 88 countries have signed it.
Tripathy made the comments at the third global renewable energy investors' (RE-Invest) conference on November 28.
An IOC spokesperson had not yet responded to a request for comment by Mint.
India is the world's third-biggest importer of crude oil. In October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India plans to grow its refining capacity from around 250 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 400 mtpa by 2025.
The move to aggregate fuel demand comes soon after the ISA lowered the cost of solar-powered agricultural pumps by half.
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