India plans to invest US$20 billion in deepwater natural gas development in the next five to seven years, the country’s Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said this week, according to news reports.
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Image from India's Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. |
The multi-billion investment is expecting to target 20 Tcf of reserves, and will primarily go to developing natural gas discoveries by India’s own ONGC and the Reliance Industries and BP-led joint venture off the east coast, Pradhan said in New Delhi yesterday (30 November).
"We are now expediting production of gas from domestic sources to the extent of 20 Tcf from already discovered sources through policy, fiscal and regulatory mechanism. These fields and the current auctions of discovered small fields are going to add to the domestic supplies in the next three to four years," Pradhan said, according to the Economic Times.
Efforts will also include increasing green fuel and to double the consumption.
“About $20 billion will be invested in next five to seven years primarily in deepwater fields to augment gas production.We are determined to increase the gas offtake significantly as it would serve several objectives. By switching to this cleaner fuel and diversifying our energy mix, we can augment our fight towards climate justice," he said."Second, we can substitute liquid fuels with natural gas in several applications; this will help us in our objective of reducing our import dependency for crude oil by 10% from the current levels by 2022."
Pradhan said that there are plans to realign infrastructure, given the role liquefied natural gas will play in India’s supply mix.
“The northern and western regions in India consume around 80 per cent of the overall volume of gas utilized in the country. We are working to change it and make eastern and southern India as new growth center," he said.
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