India’s import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) recorded a drop of 13.2 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to 1.9 million tonnes (mt) in September 2021. With this, LNG import in April-September 2021-22 stood at 11.8 mt, marginally lower than 11.9 mt recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2020-21.
Import volumes fell with global spot LNG prices climbing to record highs amid low stocks, high demand and limited supply of fuel. Meanwhile, domestic natural gas consumption had increased 10.1 per cent YoY to 26,660 million standard cubic meter in the April-August 2021-22 period.
The drop in LNG imports coincides with gas production ramping up at the difficult fields of Reliance Industries and BP’s ultra-deep-water KG-D6 Block in the Krishna Godavari basin and ONGC’s U1B deep-water gas located in the KG-DWN 98/2 block on the east coast. Though the ceiling price for gas to be produced from these difficult fields has been raised by 69 per cent to $6.13/million British thermal units, it remains much lower than imported LNG rates.