Increasing the use of natural gas is one of the most important and immediate ways of responding to the challenges of energy security facing India. India intends to increase its production and use and the government is committed to find a solution to the pricing mechanism of the industry. India also intends to promote greater flow of trade, investment, skills and services, across the gas-value-chain within the Asian region.
Speaking at the 7th Asia Gas Partnership Summit, Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, stated that natural gas is a clean answer to the energy requirements of India and the government is keen to step up its production. For doing so it realizes that the issues relating to its pricing being more remunerative and transparent are being considered. PM's statements come at a time when Reliance Industries' eastern offshore KG-D6 gas fields have seen output drop more than 40 percent to under 35 million standard cubic meters per day.
He further observed that emerging economies of Asia are increasingly using natural gas to meet their energy requirements with China and India leading the pack. As per the PM, the Asia Pacific region accounts for about 60 percent of world's total LNG imports and consumption in India has been growing at a compound annual growth rate of 14 percent. Its import capacity of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is also expected to rise to 20 million tonne by 2012-13.
Keeping in view the increased demand, India has stepped up its efforts to increase the domestic production of natural gas. Shale rock, which is one of the latest place that explorers are turning to for oil and gas, is extremely capital intensive and the PM intends to have a shale gas licensing regime in place by next year. India has already attracted $14 billion in oil and gas exploration under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) and the 9th round of NELP has just been completed covering a sedimentary area of about 33,977 square miles (88,000 square kilometers).
Australia and the Middle-East have already emerged as a principal source of gas supply in the Asia Pacific region and Singh has expressed his desire to move beyond the conventional buyer-seller relationships to more a comprehensive gas and energy partnership in the region. The Prime Minister has also informed that the government has launched an ambitious pipeline development program and the target is to have a country-wide gas grid of about 18,641 miles (30,000 kilometers) by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan in 2017.
Copyright 2012 Accord Fintech, distributed by Contify.com All Rights Reserved
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