India plans to invest $20bn in gas fields in next 5-7 years
The Dollar Business Bureau
Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said India is seeking to invest nearly $20 bn in gas field development, primarily to aid in the discovery of natural gas by ONGC and Reliance Industries-BP JV off the east coast. This investment is for the next 5-7 years keeping in view the aim to increase the usage of green fuel and double consumption, Pradhan said when speaking at CII’s ‘Global Energy Dialogue’ event.
"We are now expediting production of gas from domestic sources to the extent of 20 trillion cubic feet from already discovered sources through policy, fiscal and regulatory mechanism. These fields and the current auctions of Discovered Small Fields are going to add to the domestic supplies in the next 3-4 years," he said.
ONGC is gearing up to invest nearly $5.07 bn to produce over 16 million standard cubic meters /day of natural gas from its Krishna Godavari basin also called the KG-DWN-98/2 block.
The RIL-BP JV has to its credit discovered several possibilities close to the ONGC discovery also called the KG-DWN-98/3 or KG-D6 block and NEC-25 located off the coast of Odisha.
Natural gas makes up for 6% of the primary energy basket in India as against global average of more than 24%.
Speaking about the cleaner prospects of using gas which in the long run would serve the fight towards climate justice the minister said, the Govt is determined to increase the gas offtake significantly as it would diversify our energy mix and help us in the fight for cleaner fuel. By substituting natural gas for liquid fuels, India can reduce its dependency on importing crude oil by 10% from the current levels by 2022. And for this availability of natural gas is being increased by boosting domestic gas output, importing LNG and though trans-national gas pipelines.
Also, gas infrastructure, including pipeline, city gas network and LNG import infrastructure is being improved. "We are realigning the infrastructure planning, given the role LNG is going to play in our supply mix. The northern and western regions in India consume around 80 per cent of the overall volume of gas utilised in the country. We are working to change it and make eastern and southern India as new growth centre," he said. An additional 34 million tonnes per annum of LNG import terminal capacity are being added while pipeline network will be doubled to about 30,000 km in the next five years. Also, India is pursuing trans-national pipeline projects like Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline. Also a 1,300-km undersea gas pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran to India is being studied, he said.
