Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday said the government had planned a $60-billion investment for creating gas infrastructure in the country till 2024, and that gas’s share in the energy mix is expected to rise to 15% by 2030.
Currently, gas accounts for 6% in the country’s total energy mix. Speaking at the Assocham Foundation Day Week 2020, he said, “We have envisaged a spend of $60 billion in creating gas infrastructure till 2024, including for pipelines, LNG terminals and CGD (city gas distribution) networks.”
He further said, “We are ushering a gas-based economy by increasing the share of natural gas in India’s primary energy mix from 6.2% to 15% by 2030.”
India’s first automated national-level gas trading platform was unveiled in June this year to promote and sustain an efficient and robust gas market and foster gas trading in the country.
Coverage of CGD projects is being expanded to 232 geographical areas spread over 400 districts, with potential to cover about 53% of the country’s geography and 70% of population, Mr. Pradhan added.
He also said, “We are adopting clean mobility solutions with greater use of LNG (liquefied natural gas) as a transportation fuel, including long-haul trucking. We plan to have 1,000 LNG fuel stations across the country.” This year, the country was able to fully fill all petroleum reserves with capacity of 5.33 million tonnes constructed at Visakhapatnam, Mangaluru and Padur.
“We have [begun] the process of establishing another 6.5 MT commercial-cum-strategic petroleum storage facilities at Chandikol and Padur, under public-private partnership,” he added.
