Mysore/Mysuru: India is on its way to becoming a global energy superpower in terms of consumption and production, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said.
Virtually inaugurating the 201st plant of Liquefied Compressed Natural Gas (LCNG) established by AG&P Pratham India at Hebbal last evening, the Minister said that the Centre has set a target to provide 6 crore Piped Natural Gas (PNG) connections to households, commercial establishments and industries in the next eight years.
“As far as the Government of India is concerned, we are going to step on the accelerator in terms of exploration and production in a very big way. India will more than double the area that is under exploration and production of oil and gas to 0.5 million square kilometres by 2025 and to 1 million sq km by 2030 with a view of raising domestic output and cutting reliance on imported fuel,” he said.
India currently relies on imports to meet 85 percent of its oil needs and 50 percent of its natural gas requirement. This is because domestic production is inadequate. “With an objective of increased domestic production of oil and gas, we have declared an ambitious target to increase the area under exploration and production to 0.5 million sq km by 2025 and achieve 1 million sq km by 2030,” he said.
“Everyone will have access to PNG at their homes at an affordable rate and there are many issues to lay pipelines to deliver the PNG to the last mile. All efforts are being made to meet the challenges,” he said.
India’s Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) regasification capacity has gone up from 21 Million Metric Tonnes Per Annum (MMTPA) in 2014 to 42 MMTPA now, while the aim was to increase the country’s overall LNG regasification capacity to 62.5 MMTPA in the next few years, he said.
“Gas connections have gone up from 25 lakh in 2014 to 97 lakh connections, the number of city gas distribution districts has increased from 66 in 2014 to 630 in 2022 and the number of CNG stations too has gone up from 938 in 2014 to 4,629 at present. “We aim to increase the gas pipeline network from 18,500 kilometres to 32,000 kilometres in the next five years,” Puri added.
As part of the event, Assistant Commissioner Kamala Bai filled an autorickshaw with CNG fuel. AG&P Pratham CEO Chirdeep Datta and others were present.
This post was published on August 24, 2022 6:42 pm