LNG imports clock 11.3% growth in June, but Q1 growth remains tepid

New Delhi: On account of increased demand from the power sector, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) import for the month of June was 11.3 percent higher on a year-on-year basis, government data shows. India imported 2,648 MMSCM LNG in June this year as compared to 2,380 MMSCM in June 2023. The total natural gas consumption for June stood at 5,594 MMSCM, which was 7.1 percent higher than the corresponding month of the previous year.

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LNG imports for June were also higher as domestic natural gas production registered a tepid growth of 2.9 percent in comparison to the corresponding month of the previous fiscal year.

LNG imports in Q1 of FY25 up only by 0.6%

Despite the spike in import figures for June, the overall LNG import for Q1 of FY2024-25 has witnessed only 0.6 percent growth in comparison to the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year. This is primarily due to tepid growth in natural gas consumption during the April-June period of FY2024-25, coupled with a higher rise in domestic production. While natural gas consumption in the first three months of FY2024-25 clocked a growth of only 3.8 percent at 16,707 MMSCM, domestic natural gas production went up by 5.7 percent in Q1 of the current fiscal year to 9,056 MMSCM. Import dependency for Q1 of FY25 for natural gas was 46.7 percent.

The share of natural gas in India’s energy consumption has remained static at 5.8 percent in the past six years. The government has set out a target of increasing the share of natural gas in India’s energy mix to 15 percent by 2030. The country’s natural gas consumption was 64,144 MMSCM in 2019-20 and it went up 3.8 percent to 66,634 MMSCM in 2023-24. The spike observed in June are on account of seasonal demand from gas-based power plants which have been given a mandate by the government to operate to meet the rise in peak power demand.

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