New Delhi: India’s import bill for natural gas surged by 7% to $4.6 billion during the first four months of the current fiscal year. It was at $4.3 billion in the same period a year ago. Data released by the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell showed this.
The import bill for the month of July stood at $1.1 billion. It reported an increase of 22% from the same period in last fiscal. The country imported 11,423 million standard cubic meters of LNG (liquified natural gas) during April to July, up by 13% from the corresponding period of FY24.
During the period, the country’s consumption of natural gas increased by almost 9% to 23,364 mmscm. This growth was due to rise in consumption particularly by the city gas distribution (CGD) companies and the power sector.
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The power sector consumed 4,031 mmscm of natural gas in the first four months of FY25, up significantly by 31% from 3,071 mmscm in Apr-Jul of FY24.
Natural gas producing companies use some quantity of gas for their own use as internal consumption while some quantity of gas is flared as a part of technical requirement. After flare, loss and internal consumption by gas producing companies, the net production for sale of gas to consuming sectors like power, fertilizer, CGD, refinery, petrochemicals among others was approximately 83.2% of the gross production during July 2024.
India’s production of natural gas also registered a marginal increase of 4% in the Apr-Jul period. State-owned major oil and gas production company Oil and Natural Gas Corp produced 6,271 mmscm of natural gas during the period, 4% lower than the same period of last fiscal and much lower than the target of 6,548 mmscm for the period.
Oil India however registered an increase of 6% in its gas production during Apr-Jul from last year at 1,052 mmscm but failed to reach the target of 1,272 mmscm gas production.
India’s dependence on imported gas increased to 48.9% in the period from 46.9% in Apr-Jul of FY24. In the month of July alone, the import dependency surged to 47.2% against 43.5% in July 2023.
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