ONGC expected to lead gas production growth
India’s oil ministry announced that it expects natural gas output to rise by 50% to 146.87 million cubic meters per day (MMcm/d) by 2018-2019. A
large portion of this new production is expected to come from state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) fields, reports Times of India.
In its annual report, India’s oil ministry said that it expects output to rise to 112.95 MMcm/d in 2016-2017 from its current level of 98.15 MMcm/d, and then to 146.87 MMcm/d by 2018-2019. ONGC is expected to raise production to 96.38 MMcm/d from its current level of 65.75 MMcm/d, representing about 66% of projected production.
The ministry said output from fields operated by private firms like Reliance Industries is projected to rise to 39.53 MMcm/d from 24.62 MMcm/d.
Demand for natural gas expected to grow 30%
Demand in India is expected to grow to 523 MMcm/d in 2018-2019 from its current level of 405 MMcm/d, according to the country’s oil ministry. Gas demand is expected to climb 10% in the current fiscal year to 446 MMcm/d.
Coal, LNG, nuclear, renewables will fill India’s gaps
A presentation given by Industrial Info Resources (IIR) Wednesday projected that the remaining energy demand in India would be met primarily by coal. Of the $676 billion of active energy investments in South Asia tracked by IIR, $500 billion is in India trying to meet the rapidly growing population’s need for more energy.
IIR expects that India will also use liquefied natural gas, and potentially double its nuclear capacity, in order to help fill in the gaps in demand not met by natural gas and coal. The country is also the third largest renewable energy market after China and the U.S., with $50 billion of projects over the next five years.
