Question : Per Capita Consumption of Natural Gas

(a) whether country’s natural gas per capita consumption is far behind the global average and if so, the details of per capita consumption in the country as against the per capita consumption on the rest of the world particularly BRICS countries;
(b) whether the country suffers from a significant supply deficit in the gas market;
(c) if so, the details thereof and the shortfall that has existed in the past three years and the current year along with the projections of the state of deficit in the coming two years; and
(d) whether the Government proposes to create reserves of natural gas for their use in emergency situation in the country and if so, the details thereof along with steps taken to create such natural gas reserve?

MINISTER OF PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS (SHRI DHARMENDRA PRADHAN)
(a) As per Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Statistics 2016-17, natural gas per capita consumption during 2016 in India as against the per capita consumption of the world and BRICS countries is as under:
Name of the country
Per capita consumption of natural gas in kg Oil Equivalent
Brazil
159.8
Russian Federation
2437.7
India
33.9
China
137.4
South Africa
72.4
World
431.9
(b) & (c) Supply/demand of natural gas is being met through domestically produced gas and imported Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). LNG is imported under open general license on the terms and conditions mutually agreed upon between the buyers and sellers and it is being traded on market based mechanism.
(d) In para 6.8.2 of the draft National Energy Policy formulated by NITI Aayog, it has been stated that “On the lines of a normative petroleum product storage infrastructure, even gas storage will be required if consumers have to be assured of uninterrupted supplies