The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will strive to increase its natural gas consumption by almost 250 percent by 2030 as the government makes efforts to achieve carbon-neutrality, a senior official at the country’s largest oil refiner has told Economic Times.
“The Indian Oil refineries consume about 8.5 million cubic meters of gas per day. As gas consumption increases, the use of naphtha (a hydrocarbon derivate) at facilities is expected to decrease,” she said.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has said that India’s natural gas imports would rise to 115 billion cubic meters (bcm) from 66 bcm in 2021.
According to US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Asia is the biggest importer of natural gas globally, followed by Europe and North America, as of July 2023.
The US, Russia and Middle-East, mainly Qatar, are the biggest natural gas producers, according to current estimates.
India’s Rising Gas Imports from Russia
In a bid to diversify its natural gas importer base, New Delhi began importing natural gas from Russian energy giant Gazprom in 2018 under a 20-year deal signed in 2012.
The joint statement released after consultations between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin after their meeting at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in 2019 called for increasing the participation of Russian companies in the Indian gas distribution market.
India has also expressed interest in importing natural gas from Iran, which is also known to have vast LNG reserves.
Previously, New Delhi has also been involved in exploring possibility for jointly developing the Farzan B gas field as well as importing Iranian gas through the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline.
But these plans suffered a setback after Washington pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Deal and imposed sanctions on Tehran.