Perry heads to India to promote natural gas exports

Energy Secretary Rick Perry is traveling to India starting Friday to promote liquefied natural gas (LNG) and other forms of energy from the United States.

His itinerary will include meetings in New Delhi “with both government officials and private sector stakeholders about the growing bilateral energy relationship between the United States and India,” the department said Friday.

{mosads}The trip will also include a meeting to launch an energy partnership between the nations, chaired by Perry and India’s minister of petroleum and natural gas, Dharmendra Pradhan.

Bloomberg reported that in February, Perry postponed his India trip in order to attend talks with Saudi leaders about a potential agreement to let them use U.S. nuclear power technology.

Perry previewed the India trip Thursday in a budget hearing with the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy.

“India is obviously a huge market” for United States energy, he said. “Our ability to deliver U.S. innovation, U.S. natural resources into that country are a great opportunity. That’s the real driving factor of why we’re headed that way.”

Perry told senators earlier in the week that he’ll also be pitching India on buying “clean coal” technology from the United States, such as carbon capture equipment.

Perry has made it a priority to promote exports of fossil fuels like LNG and oil in his time as secretary.

He said in January that when the U.S. exports LNG, it “is not just exporting energy, we’re exporting freedom.”

“We’re exporting to our allies in Europe the opportunity to truly have a choice of where do you buy your energy from. That’s freedom. And that kind of freedom is priceless,” he said on Fox Business Network.

Energy exports are a key pillar of President Trump’s agenda for “energy dominance,” a strategy to increase domestic production of fossil fuels and other energy sources and use exports as a geopolitical tool.

India took its first import of U.S. crude oil in October and its first import of U.S. LNG in March.