India's Gas Output to Increase 20% by 2020-2021
India’s gas production is expected to rise to 39.3bn m3 in 2020-2021 (April-March) from 32.87bn m3 in 2018-2019, an increase of almost 20%, country’s petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan said during an event in New Delhi August 26.
The share of gas in India’s energy mix is 6.2% compared with 24% globally, and the aim is to increase share to 15% by 2030, he said. Despite expected rise in domestic gas production, India will need to import significant volumes of LNG to meet domestic demand. According to Pradhan, India’s LNG import and regasification capacity of 38.8mn mt/year will be augmented to 52.5mn mt/yr in next three to four years. Long term contracts have been signed for importing LNG, and its sources are being diversified, the minister said.
India is focusing on expanding the reach of its city gas distribution (CGD) network. Pradhan said that in last five years, the number of domestic piped natural gas (PNG) connections, CNG vehicles and CNG stations have more than doubled. He said that India is the third largest energy consumer of the world, and will become top consumer in a decade and with rising consumption of energy in the country, the share of CNG will increase the most.
In the last one year, India has successfully concluded the ninth and the 10th CGD bidding rounds. After the completion of the 10th round, over 70% of the country’s population and 52.73% of the area will be covered under the CGD network, Pradhan said.