Natural Gas Sector in India

Natural Gas Sector in India

About the Industry

We have always been concerned with the growing levels of pollution because of which finding alternate cleaner source of energy was the need of the hour. This led to the discovery of natural gas in the 1960s in the states of Assam and Gujarat. Initially explored by government firms, ONGC and OIL, private companies were allowed to explore as well due to which other potential areas of natural gas were found near Krishna-Godavari basin, Cauvery basin, Tripura etc. In the year 2004, 100% foreign participation in exploration was allowed in the current New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) regime. Identifying natural gas to be one of the cleanest fuels was one of the biggest findings since it emits comparatively lesser pollutants than the other hydrocarbon fuels used.

Infrastructure

The infrastructure of the natural gas sector in India consists of:

Gas Pipelines

R-LNG terminals

City Gas Distribution networks

In order to increase the usage of CNG and PNG for transport and domestic purposes respectively and also for a more developed CGD sector in our country, the ministry has decided to meet 100% requirement throughout India with no discrimination of resources.

Further, to bring transparency in pricing of CNG and PNG, the Ministry has also instructed CGD entities to display breakup of prices at individual stations and also in the invoice issued to customers. This would eventually lead to increase in number of CNG stations across the nation.

International Trade Patterns

Russia, India and China are one of the latest blocs growing in the oil and gas industry after US-Canada-Mexico.