TOI: India banks on Canada to skirt US gas export ban

India is trying to include Canada into the supply equation as it prepares to become an importer of energy from the US. But the plan may meet with only a limited success because of third-country pricing economics.

New Delhi has been lobbying Washington for a special dispensation to ship liquid gas from the US. Washington does not allow energy exports to countries that do not have a free trade agreement (FTA) with it.

Because of this ban, India's state-run gas utility is feeling hamstrung in its efforts to strike big deals for importing liquid gas from the US. The company in December signed a contract to import shale gas from Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass facility and is close to clinching another such deal worth $12 billion.

While the political process to break the logjam over the US energy export ban to non-FTA countries continues, India is trying to work its way around the problem by roping in Canada that has a pipeline network with the US east coast. MORE