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Govt Plans To Invest In Foreign LNG Plants

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[India plans to invest in liquefied natural gas plants in producing countries to help meet growing demand in its own rapidly expanding economy, oil minister S. Jaipal Reddy said on Monday. It is also expanding its LNG gasification capacity and scouting for long-term sourcing of LNG, Reddy said in a speech at World Petroleum Conference in Doha. India buys 7.5 million tonnes a year of LNG from Qatar in long term deals and has also signed long term supply contracts with Australia's Gorgon venture. India needs gas to help power electricity generation, produce fertilisers, for cooking, to run vehicles and for industry. But its imports are curbed by a lack of pipeline infrastructure and LNG import terminals. India's current gas demand at 166 million cubic metres a day (mmscmd) is projected to rise to 443 mmscmd by 2017, junior oil minister R.P.N. Singh at a conference in Delhi India's domestic output is falling because of problems at the D6 block off India's east coast operated by Reliance while state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp is struggling to arrest declining production from its ageing field. Rating agency ICRA has revised down India's gas output estimate by 22 percent to 153 mmscmd by 2014-15 mainly due to falling output from the D6 block and a delay in commissioning satellite fields. India, the world's fourth largest oil importer, ships in 80 percent of its oil needs to meet growing local fuel demand and feed its expanding refining capacity. To cut its oil imports, Reddy said, India aims to raise the extent of areas explored from 65 percent to 100 percent by 2015. India's balance of recoverable reserves from known oil and gas reservoirs are about 2041 million tonnes, Reddy said, adding India's coal reserves, the fourth largest in the world, are likely to hold about 92 trillion cubic feet of coal bed methane. (Reuters)