The fast growing Indian economy is in need of energy resources especially oil and natural gas. The domestic production of natural gas has not matched the rising demand of energy resources. India at present is heavily dependent on Persian Gulf oil and that of Saudi Arabia to meet its energy requirements. The heavy dependence on a few countries puts India at the risk of totally losing oil supply in case of political crises in those countries. The Gulf war of 1990 and the Iraq war in recent times are the best examples. The African continent possesses 17% of the known oil reserves of the world and has a huge deposit of natural gas. India and African countries before 1990 collaborated in the South-South framework. The period after the 1990s has changed the module of cooperation and activities of Indian private sector companies including that of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), which has far reaching consequences in building a new cooperative module with African countries.

The end of the Cold War has changed the nature of interdependence between countries of north and south. The interstate relations between countries of the south have also changed as a consequence of globalization.

India and African countries, separated by the Indian Ocean are maritime neighbors. For centuries, Indians on the west coast of Gujarat to Malabar Coast found it easier to reach east coast of Africa by sea, instead of traveling through the Indian hinterland. To understand the unity established by sea one has to consider geographical distinctiveness of the Indian Ocean, which unlike Atlantic and Pacific oceans is relatively small and semi-enclosed, and the development of two distinct socio-economic ethos due to the positioning of Indian peninsula and chain of islands, dividing the Indian Ocean Region in two distinctive socio-economic zones.

Factoring Energy Security in India-Africa Relations, African, Indian, countries, resources, socioeconomic, collaborated, consequences, cooperation, Arabia, development, deposit, distinctiveness, established, especially, geographical, globalization, interdependence, Malabar, Natural, positioning, production, Region, requirements, semienclosed