Growth in industrial and commercial sectors together with rise in population has led to increase in energy demands. With the inadequacy of domestically available energy supply, government has had to increase spending on imports of crude oil and oil products. Major imports are from Iran, Qatar, Oman and Russia. India is flanked by gas rich nations with exportable surpluses, and it needs to be examined how best to transport the gas economically and efficiently to India. Parallelly, the government is intensively promoting exploration of natural gas in India, inviting both foreign and local firms to participate. However, flaring of natural gas continued during 1994-95, at about 11.6% of the total production. Flaring of natural gas takes place due to lack of :
The production of natural gas in 1994-95 at 19.4 billion cubic meters, was higher by 5.7% than 1993-94. Today, the lack of power, finance and expertise is compelling the government to seek more power generation projects. Nearly 70 power projects will be in operation by the year 1997. One third of these are based on gas. Natural gas accounts for 10% of the primary energy demand in India. Gas use has mainly developed in the North east due to the 1980's commissioning of the Hazira-Bijapur-Jagdishpur (HBJ) pipeline that links Bombay High in the south-west to consumer centers in the North. Along the route, fertilizer plants and combined cycle power plants have come up.
In India 80% of gas is utilized in fertilizer and power sectors. The other uses of natural gas are in LPG, furnace oil and sponge iron. Presently, larger volumes of gas are used to produce fertilizer-a sector where gas use is considered most efficient as against power sector.
With government inviting independent power producers, the demand for gas for the gas-fired combined cycle power plants will increase, thereby, affecting the supplies to the fertilizer sector. However, by the year 2000, demand for fertilizer is expected to be met through dedicated offshore plants and power generation is expected to account for 29% of gas use, going upto 36% by 2005.
The total gas availability in India today is 1,400 MMCFD, which is likely to reach 2,100 MMCFD by the year 2000 and 3,000 MMCFD by 2010. The gap between demand and domestic production by 2000 will be 3,000 MMCFD, likely to reach 5,600 MMCFD by 2010.
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