| dc.description.abstract | India is blessed with adequate reserves of coal and hydro resource whereas the conventional hydrocarbon (oil and gas) reserves so far estimated are inadequate to meet the growing demand of this country. Latest estimates indicate that India has around 0.4% of the world’s proven reserves of crude oil and natural gas and against this the domestic consumption is estimated at 2.8% of the world’s consumption. The balance of recoverable reserves, estimated at the beginning of 2001, is 733.70 million metric tonnes (MMT) of crude and 749.65 billion cubic metres (BCM) of natural gas. Crude oil demand is currently about 146 MMT against the domestic production of 34 MMT only. Similarly, the natural gas demand is currently about 179 million metric standard cubic meters per day (MMSCMD) against the domestic supply of about 80 MMSCMD. India’s crude oil import dependency from the current level of 72% is likely to increase to 90% by 2025. India's domestic natural gas demand will show a breakaway growth with demand rising to 200 mm cubic meters per day (cmpd) from the present 70 mm cubic meters per day (cmpd). However, the additional gas production from the new finds, such as the one made by Reliance Industries in the Krishna-Godavari offshore, may still not be able to meet the entire requirement, since the power sector and fertilizer units likely consume >74% and the balance 26% of the projected demand by the other industries, transport and domestic use. This huge demand requires to be met either from the imports or increase in domestic production and switching over to other non conventional energy fuels. One such non-conventional fuel is methane gas stored in gas hydrate deposit. Significance of this gas hydrate is that its abundant availability in the shallow marine sediments of slope, and on dissociation 1 cubic meter of gas hydrate yields nearly 164 cubic meters of pure methane gas and about 0.8 cubic meters of fresh water. Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoP&NG), Government of India initiated in 1996 with an ambitious plan of exploring gas hydrate deposits within the Indian continental margins to meet partly the projected demand-supply gap of fossil fuels. Continuous efforts of Indian scientific community and oil industry culminated at identification of most probable areas for detail exploration. One such promising area is the Krishna-Godavari offshore, eastern continental margin of India. Some results of this initiative under Indian National Gas Hydrate Program (NGHP) are presented in this report | |
