Oil ministry in its annual report has stated that India's natural gas output is likely to rise by 50 percent to 146.87 million standard cubic meters per day by 2018-19 on account of higher production from state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) fields. The ministry further added that domestic gas production will rise from 98.15 mmscmd in 2014-15 to 99.87 mmscmd in the current fiscal.
The oil ministry further detailed that in 2016-17, the output will climb to 112.95 mmscmd and finally to 146.87 mmscmd in 2018-19. Bulk of the incremental output will come from ONGC which will see production rise to 65.75 mmsmd in 2014-15 to 96.38 mmscmd. ONGC production will include 4.66 mmscmd from New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) block KG-DWN-98/2 or KG-D5 in 2017-18 and 12.05 mmsmcd in 2018-19. The other state owned company Oil India will see gas production rise from 7.78 mmscmd last fiscal to 10.96 mmscmd in four years.
The ministry has projected the output from fields operated by private firms like Reliance Industries to rise from 24.62 mmscmd in 2014-15 to 39.53 mmscmd in 2018-19. It has further projected the demand to increase by nearly 30 per cent to 523 mmscmd in 2018-19 from 405 mmscmd in 2014-15. Gas demand is expected to climb 10 per cent in the current fiscal to 446 mmscmd.