Jaipur/Balotra, July 5 -- India will continue building new oil refineries to secure its supply chains even as Western nations shut down processing capacity, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, crediting the sector's expansion for helping the country avoid the fuel shortages and price spikes that hit other nations during the West Asia conflict. "In the United States, not a single new refinery has been built in the past 50 years. Europe's refinery capacity has steadily declined. Meanwhile, India has become the fourth-largest refining nation in the world. And we will not stop here - in the coming years, this capacity will increase further. These efforts enabled India to fight and overcome the greatest energy crisis of the century," Modi said on Saturday, inaugurating the Pachpadra Refinery in Rajasthan's Balotra alongside development projects worth about Rs.1.06 lakh crore. He said the war in West Asia had created the biggest energy crisis of the 21st century, with many powerful nations facing fuel shortages, while India "took the right decisions at the right time, assessed the situation correctly, used its resources wisely and strengthened its diplomatic engagement," calling India's handling of the crisis an "unprecedented" chapter. He said India was particularly exposed because around 70% of its LPG demand relies on imports, with roughly 90% of that historically routed through Gulf countries via the Strait of Hormuz. He alleged that while some people were spreading rumours and creating panic, the Centre was working continuously at the policy and diplomatic levels to ensure uninterrupted energy supplies. As the conflict disrupted shipping, the government redirected industrial gas into LPG production, adding 54,000 tonnes of supply within a week, and reconfigured refineries that had not previously made LPG. Piped natural gas connections were also fast-tracked, reaching over 1.1 million households, Modi said. Cylinder prices, which some estimates suggested could climb to nearly Rs.2,000, instead held near Rs.950 for domestic consumers, according to Modi; commercial LPG prices were cut as well. Crude prices rose from around $70 a barrel to nearly $120 after the conflict escalated, Modi said. "In several countries, petrol and diesel prices increased by 40-50% and fuel was rationed. India did not witness such a situation even for a single day," he said, adding that rumours and political criticism had failed to undermine the government's response. Modi put oil marketing companies' losses during the period at more than Rs.75,000 crore. To be sure, pump prices had been frozen at Rs.94.77 for petrol and Rs.87.67 for diesel since March 2024 - a period through which international crude fell well below current levels, allowing state-run oil companies to post strong profits in Rajasthan in 2018....