Interview: How the war in West Asia could change India’s energy calculus

On Wednesday, the war in West Asia shifted significant gears when Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field. In retaliation on early Thursday, Iran attacked Qatar’s Ras Laffan plant – the world’s largest liquified natural gas plant from where one-fifth of the global natural gas is exported.

The implications are bound to be felt worldwide: the attack is expected to reduce the country’s export capacity by 17%, and it could take up to five years to repair the damage.

Half of India’s LNG imports come from Qatar alone. Most of this is used by the fertiliser industry, followed by city distribution of pipeline gas for cooking and compressed natural gas.

Experts say the damage to Ras Laffan could directly impact India. “We might see supply crunches of LNG which could lead to price increases for the fuel,” Purva Jain, the South Asia’s Lead Energy Specialist for Gas & International Advocacy at US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis told Scroll.

The LNG supply is now an added worry upon the existing energy supply shortages that emerged with the closure of Strait of Hormuz. The first to hit Indian homes amidst this crisis was the liquified petroleum gas shortage, which had citizens queuing up for cylinders and many moving to other fuels like firewood and kerosene to meet cooking demands.

“This crisis showed us that India is import dependent,” said Jain, adding that this is a good time for India to comprehensively plan to diversify energy sources to other countries. “The right policy nudge could make it go in a direction that is more stable and secure for India in the long term.”

Scroll spoke to her about what the West Asia conflict reflects about India’s current energy mix and what could change.

As war rages in West Asia, many people in India are hearing terms like LNG, PNG. Could you give us a primer on how each of these are used in India across sectors, and how much of this comes from other countries?

Liquid petroleum gas or LPG has both commercial and domestic use. We have varied cylinder sizes for it, 14.2 kg and 5 kg for domestic 19 and bigger for commercial. As far as domestic production is concerned, India imports 60% and 40% is domestically produced. Within that 60%, there is a large dependence from Qatar.

There are two ways countries import natural gas. One is liquified, which comes in big tankers and the other is through piped supply, which India currently does not have. We import 48-50% and the rest we produce domestically for the current consumption. This gas is used in power generation, producing fertilisers, and in the city gas network.

This network includes piped natural gas which comes to our house for cooking and compressed natural gas. Piped natural gas also has industrial and commercial segments and is used by petrochemical and refineries as well as other small and medium industries like glass and tile making.

When the supply of oil and gas was hit from the Strait of Hormuz, the LPG availability was the first to hit India. Why did that happen?

A country’s import dependability, where we are importing from, how much reserves we have, all of this translates into what happens in a country in case a crisis emerges. This crisis showed us that we are import dependent, and we are majorly importing from West Asia, and these factors resulted in the potential supply crunch which led to the government taking a preventive measure to seize the commercial supply.

In comparison, LNG supply seems less affected. In fact, the government has been encouraging people to shift to PNG wherever available.

We do have 50% domestic production of LNG. Amidst the current crisis there is a priority allocation made for PNG, CNG, and fertiliser industry, and the government’s move is to maybe ease off the LPG burden from the supply that seems more impacted right now in order to use more domestic supply [of natural gas].

It is about balancing what is available and optimising it. The government’s strategy is to refine more LPG in the country and also transition those who can towards PNG so that everyone’s needs are met. Currently, the government’s move seems to reflect that they are making sure cooking needs are met from a cleaner source and people are not forced to transition back to firewood and other dirtier fuels. A push for e-cooking and induction could be very helpful as well here.

With gas and oil supplies hit, would India shift towards using more coal as fuel, thereby increasing emissions?

The overlap of sectors that use coal and gas are very limited. In the power sector for example, there could be slightly higher use of coal to displace the gas based power production. But [gas based power generation] is only 2% right now in India’s overall generation mix, that too it comes during peak demands only.

In the fertiliser industry, there is no overlap with coal as they have become completely gas based. For producing urea, you need naphtha or natural gas, since it’s a feed stock as well. However, India has almost phased-out naphtha based urea production prior to this crisis.

Probably the only sector where you would see some overlap would be miscellaneous small and medium scale industries. However, IEEFA did an analysis in 2022 when the gas prices increased [due to Russia-Ukraine war] and found that the demand actually went up for other fuels like naphtha and liquid fuels. Gas demand was probably being replaced by these other fuels.

Even if you look at city gas and cooking, the overlap is not there with coal. We have heard of demand going up for other fuels like kerosene.

But reports suggest that Asian countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan are pivoting to coal in absence of natural gas. What makes their situation different?

It’s most likely the end use. For Bangladesh and Pakistan, LNG has the biggest share in power, and that is why it's a possibility that they are moving to coal. [Pakistan uses 70% of its total LNG imports for their power sector and Bangladesh’s LNG imports are also mainly for the power sector].

What has India’s overall trend of LNG demand been?

We did a report last year which showed that the maximum LNG growth has come from the fertiliser sector. Earlier, this sector was using more domestic gas over imported gas, and now it is using about 88% of imported gas. Urea production in the country is also increasing and so this has been the primary driver of demand for LNG.

Imported gas is quite expensive, it is not as affordable as domestic gas, so it does not become a competitive fuel in the market. Now with what is happening in the world and if imported gas prices are expected to go up, that would be a wider price difference, and probably these industries will not have a competitive edge if they use imported LNG as a primary fuel.

In 2022-’24, there was a 135% increase in gas demand from other industries, but this was driven by domestic gas.

The same study also showed that for some sectors like petrochemical and refinery, there has actually been a decreasing consumption of LNG in the last four years. Why is that?

The high LNG prices globally have made the fuel unaffordable. So these sectors have moved to either domestic gas or other alternatives like ethane, refinery off-gases and cheaper petroleum based fuels.

The fertiliser industry continues to import LNG despite the prices as it is a highly subsidised sector and is able to absorb the price shocks.

What are the alternate sources available and what should be India’s long term alternate energy plan?

India has already been taking steps to promote alternative fuels in multiple sectors. What is now needed is a coherent policy direction. For example, we saw in the case of electric vehicles that a big scheme was introduced, and after initial hiccups, the uptake of vehicles increased.

In the cooking sector, we have a large section of the population that is still dependent on solid fuels [wood, dung cakes, crop residue] that are detrimental for health and environment. India has made a substantial increase with LPG connections, but the consumption is not as high because of affordability. You would see about 38% to 40% people still reliant on solid fuels for cooking. Now with challenges of import in the current conflict, India needs to plug in electric and solar cooking, so that this gap that exists can be bridged.

In the fertiliser industry which is a big gas consuming sector, the government has promoted organic fertilisers and biogas slurry and provided incentives for cleaner fertilisers. It is a good time to double down on them.

In recent years, India has also started to see a diversification in import strategy for LNG. Qatar was our primary supplier and now the US has also started to emerge as a big supplier. There were talks of Australia and Canada as importers too, but so far the price economics of it have not worked.