Resource Potential in Electricity Sector
According to Oil and Gas Journal, India had approximately 38 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven natural gas reserves as of January 2011, world’s 26th largest. United States Energy Information Administration estimates that India produced approximately 1.8 Tcf of natural gas in 2010, while consuming roughly 2.3 Tcf of natural gas. The electrical power and fertilizer sectors account for nearly three-quarters of natural gas consumption in India. Natural gas is expected to be an increasingly important component of energy consumption as the country pursues energy resource diversification and overall energy security.
Until 2008, the majority of India's natural gas production came from the Mumbai High complex in the northwest part of the country. Recent discoveries in the Bay of Bengal have shifted the center of gravity of Indian natural gas production.
The country already produces some coalbed methane and has major potential to expand this source of cleaner fuel. According to a 2011 Oil and Gas Journal report, India is estimated to have between 600 to 2000 Tcf of shale gas resources (one of the world’s largest). Despite its natural resource potential, and an opportunity to create energy industry jobs, India has yet to hold a licensing round for its shale gas blocks. It is not even mentioned in India's central government energy infrastructure or electricity generation plan documents through 2025. The traditional natural gas reserves too have been very slow to develop in India because regulatory burdens and bureaucratic red tape severely limit the country’s ability to harness its natural gas resources.
Read more about this topic: Electricity Sector In India
Famous quotes containing the words resource, potential and/or electricity:
“If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveler always has a resource in the skies. They are constantly turning a new page to view. The wind sets the types on this blue ground, and the inquiring may always read a new truth there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The traditional American husband and father had the responsibilities—and the privileges—of playing the role of primary provider. Sharing that role is not easy. To yield exclusive access to the role is to surrender some of the potential for fulfilling the hero fantasy—a fantasy that appeals to us all. The loss is far from trivial.”
—Faye J. Crosby (20th century)
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)