Overview of India's Energy Sector
With a GDP of USD 1.23 trillion India is currently the world's fourth largest economy in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms (the GDP in PPP terms is estimated at approximately USD 3.2 trillion) and the fifth largest energy consumer in the world. However, due to its high population of approximately 1.1 billion, the per-capita consumption of most energy related products is extremely low. The per capita energy consumption is estimated to be a very modest 530 Kg of Oil Equivalent (kgoe) while the world average is approximately 1800 kgoe.
After recording a sustained growth of over 9 per cent for the last 3 consecutive years (growth rates were estimated at 9.5, 9.7 and 9 per cent respectively over the last 3 fiscal years), the Indian economy is expected to continue to demonstrate robust growth going forward; the growth rate is estimated to be approximately 6.6 percent in 2008-09.
New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP)
Two major events this year, the commencement of production of natural gas from Reliance Industries Ltd's (RIL) Krishna Godavari (KG) fields and the scheduled commencement of production of crude oil from Cairn India Ltd's fields later this year have provided a major boost to the domestic oil and gas sector in India and have meant that upstream activities have received major attention over the past years.
Role of Oil & Gas in India's Energy Mix
The importance of oil in India can be gauged from the fact that it accounts for 36 per cent of the Primary Energy Mix in India. Taken with natural gas, this percentage rises to 45 per cent. However, the proportion of natural gas is approximately one-third that of the world average, once again indicating the potential for rapid growth. It may be noted in this context, that a heavy reliance on coal in India is not optimal, given that coal is a far more polluting fossil fuel as compared to natural gas
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