(ET)
India is considering building emergency stockpiles of natural gas, on the lines of strategic oil reserves, to deal with supply disruption amid the country’s growing dependence on fuel and its import. The government wants domestic consumption of natural gas, a cleaner fossil fuel, to rise two-and-a-half times by 2030 and is encouraging big public and private investments in gas production, import, transport and distribution infrastructure. Local demand increased 5.5% between April and October to 35.1 billion cubic meters, increasing dependence on imports to 47% of total consumption from 44% a year earlier.
“Today, we consume very little gas but once new import terminals and pipelines are in place and new city gas licensees have rolled out their services across the country, there would be a sharp jump in the consumer base. Any supply disruption can have a huge impact,” said a person, explaining the rationale for building emergency.
