Petroleum Minister on impact of Israel-Palestine conflict on energy prices: 'Will watch the situation carefully'

New Delhi, October 9 (IANS) : Amid heightened stand-off between Israel and Palestine, India has said that it will adopt a cautious approach as far as the conflict’s impact on the energy sector is concerned.

“India will handle it with maturity. As far as the energy sector is concerned, the place where the action is taking place is in many respects the centre of global energy. We will watch very carefully.

We will navigate our way through this. These kinds of uncertainties only encourage people for sustainable and cleaner fuel,” Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri said on the sidelines of an event on Monday.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine during the weekend unnerved global markets and saw crude oil futures prices jump 5 per cent in early trade today.Experts have said that if Iran joins the conflict, then it could disrupt oil supplies, which may cause a spike in crude prices.

Iran is a supporter of Hamas, whose rocket attacks on Israel had triggered the war.