As India is pushing to increase gas into the energy mix, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday noted renegotiation of a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) contract with Qatar in the coming days.
The minister said that discussions around LNG may feature during the upcoming visits by ministers from Qatar, Russia, and US President Donald Trump as.
"The energy minister of Qatar is coming for bilateral discussions (to India) at the end of the month. We will discuss all the aspects", Minister Pradhan told the press while responding to a query on whether India will renegotiate LNG contracts against the backdrop of a fall in prices in the spot or current market.
The spot price of LNG on Asian markets dropped to $4 per million British thermal units this week, hitting is a multi-year low.
Earlier, in 2016, Pradhan claimed the revision in LNG prices with Qatar had brought down the cost of importing natural gas from $12 to less than $5 per million metric British thermal units.
India signed a long-term contract with Qatar in 2003 and received benefits up to $15 billion in the first 11 years of the contract as New Delhi was paying a lower price than the international rate.
In 2018, India renegotiated a gas import deal with Russia's Gazprom and will have saved around $1.4 billion during the course of the contract set to end in 2040, Pradhan claimed.
India's state-owned gas utility GAIL India renegotiated the price agreed in 2012 with the Russian firm.
The present share of gas in the energy basket of the country is 6.2% and the target is to take it to 15% by 2030 against the world average of 24%. As per Indian government estimates, LNG imports may rise threefold to 70 million metric tonnes per annum (MTPA) by 2030.
