
As India, the world's fourth-largest LNG importer expands its infrastructure across the value chain in a coordinated fashion, new opportunities open up for the private sector.
A roadmap to a greener future has liquified natural gas (LNG) as a central feature, and India has been active in building out regasification as well as domestic pipeline capacity over the last sixteen years in line with its plan to achieve its environmental goals.
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As the country adds four new import terminals to the current six by 2023, regasification capacity will be expanded by nearly 45 per cent to 7.6 billion cubic feet/day from the current baseline. By 2030, India aims to increase its share of natural gas in the energy mix from 6 per cent to 15 per cent, which would imply that price risk management will become increasingly important. This is happening while simultaneously diversifying its sourcing portfolio, giving rise to a plethora of opportunities arise for exporters, traders, engineering, construction and maintenance specialists in years ahead.
Domestic onshore and offshore gas production has seen declines over the years, and while the government has ramped up efforts to invest in upstream energy projects overseas, much of the focus has been on exploration and production of primarily crude oil. In light of this, there is a growing dependence on imported LNG to service the needs of industrials, power generators, retail consumers and the fertiliser industry. Petronet, GAIL, Royal Dutch Shell, Adani and Indian Oil are leading players in the import capacity building space and have signed several long-term agreements with suppliers from the US, Australia, Qatar and Russia, helping strengthen bilateral ties between governments.