Indian Gas Market Set to Grow: US Congress

India has the potential to be a much larger producer and consumer of natural gas by 2022, a report released by US Congress said.

“Despite India’s intentions to double the proportion of natural gas consumption by 2022, achieving this goal would require major upstream, midstream, and downstream investments as well as the continued political will to enact the necessary changes to decrease reliance on coal and oil,” the bipartisan and independent Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in a report on India's natural gas sector that was released last week.

The share of gas in India’s energy mix is low at 7% and the government is taking steps to increase the share to 15% in coming years as the country is beset by high-profile environmental issues such as major air pollution and contaminated water supplies due to their reliance on coal and oil.

“India’s natural gas plans have implications for a number of issues in which Congress has expressed an interest. Those issues include the prospects for US hydrocarbon exports, US energy companies’ investments, Indian investments in US natural gas production, India’s ability to meet its international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to combat climate change, and India’s plans for integrating itself into the growing South Asian energy market,” the report said.

The report stated that some members of the US Congress have been interested in enhancing energy cooperation between the US and India. Since the mid-2000s no law has been enacted to implement this, despite bills having been introduced in both houses.

On supply of US LNG to India, the report said that given India’s rising demand for LNG, and the growing US LNG export capacity, it is likely that additional US natural gas will supply India in the future. In February 2016, India received its first LNG shipments from the United States.

Congressional Research Service regularly brings out reports on issues of interest to American lawmakers so that they can make informative decisions. It is a legislative branch agency within the US Library of Congress. However its reports are not considered to be official Congress documents.

Shardul Sharma