India’s LNG imports climb

India’s import of liquefied natural gas rose in the period from April 2014 to March 2015, data from the country’s Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas reveals. 

The country imported 11.46 million tonnes of LNG in the fiscal year 2014-2015, compared to 10.76 million tonnes in the same period before, according to the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC), which is a part of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

However, this data does not include imports of the chilled gas by Reliance Industries, one of the five LNG importing companies in India, PPAC said.

The other four companies are Petronet LNG, Shell’s Hazira LNG, GAIL, and GSPC.

Moody’s Investors Service said recently in a report that India’s LNG imports could more than double to 24 million tonnes per annum by 2020.

The report says the demand for LNG in India would be even greater if it were more widely used by the power generation sector, which currently absorbs only 10 percent of bulk imports because of the fuel’s persistently high price relative to coal and domestic gas.

LNG World News Staff; Image: Petronet LNG