The Secretary-General of the Doha-headquartered Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), Dr. Yury Sentyurin, highlighted the enormous potential of natural gas which has proved to be a viable energy option that contributes efficiently to achieve a balance between the environment, social and economic dimensions of the sustainable development, during interactions with the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi at the Global Oil and Gas CEOs session, held semi-virtually, recently. Chaired by Prime Minister Modi and India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Minister of Steel Dharmendra Pradhan, the Global Oil & Gas CEOs interaction session was held right after the inauguration of the two-day India Energy Forum - CERAWeek.
As India rises to become the third-largest energy consumer of the world with expected investments in upwards of $300bn by 2030, the government has placed its faith in natural gas to drive the change in India’s energy map. Modi highlighted the importance of natural gas by stating: “While the focus is to make India a gas-based economy, the nation would also be raising oil refining capacity…Leading global bodies project that global demand will contract for the next few years, but these agencies project India as a leading consumer.”
This was endorsed by the GECF Secretary-General, who, in his address to the gathering of energy industry’s most powerful decision-makers, confirmed the expected rise in demand in India: “Our projections based on the GECF’s highly-acclaimed Global Gas Model show a promising outlook for the future of gas production in India: the volume of marketed natural gas production will reach the level of 60 billion cubic metres by 2050, a lion's share of which (73 percent) will be sourced from yet-to-find (YTF) resources.” “The GECF has a lot to contribute to the success of the many upstream investments that will steward these discovery projects in India,” Sentyurin added. He acknowledged the recent launch of the Gas Exchange, a first-ever online delivery-based gas-trading platform, as an “outstanding achievement” of the Indian Government.
He further appreciated India’s vision to unlock the true versatility of the natural gas to achieve the country’s climate action targets. The strong relationship between India and the GECF is being propelled by the world’s second-most populous nation’s planned increase of natural gas consumption, from current level of 6 percent to 15 percent by 2030, as it fulfils rising demand in consumption but also works to realise its climate action targets. The GECF members, such as Angola, Nigeria, and Qatar are some of the leading exporters of gas to India, making up 80 percent of the LNG supply to the South Asian nation.
Qatar’s Minister of State for Energy Affairs, H E Saad Sherida Al Kaabi, also participated in the session. “Despite Year 2020 becoming challenging for the world, we are witnessing that India remains consistent in terms of its long-term commitment to the continuous expansion and advancement of the national industry, as well as to its environmental pledges linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement provisions,” noted Sentyurin. Citing the GECF Global Gas Outlook 2050’s latest available iteration, the Secretary General affirmed that natural gas will be the indispensable fuel complementing the energy transition. It is expected to overtake “dirty coal” in 2025 and become the largest global primary e n e r g y s o u r c e b y mid-century.
SOURCE: THEPENINSULAQATAR