Why we don’t get enough piped gas for cooking
Oil India Ltd. However, there is no specification or mandate on how much gas should go to each of the two segments. Under the administered price mechanism (APM), the price of gas from legacy fields is capped, making it cheaper than gas from other fields.
A person aware of the developments said several gas distributors prefer to supply most of this allocated cheaper gas for CNG where margins are higher than PNG. Currently, distributors get around 20 million standard cubic metres of natural gas every day, most of which goes for CNG, according to industry experts. “The gas needs to be allocated to these two consumption sectors separately.
The gas is given under the header of CGD, for both cooking and transport. The regulator may recommend that the cheaper gas from legacy fields should be used largely for PNG," said the person mentioned above. The move comes in the backdrop of slow progress in the penetration of PNG connections despite the government’s push for expanding the PNG network.
Currently, there are only around 10 million piped gas connections compared with over 290 million cylinder gas users. The government aims to take the number of piped bas connections to 125 million by 2030. The move is also aimed at fulfilling the target of increasing the share of gas in India’s energy mix to 15% by 2030 from the current 6%.
So far, gas distributors have been authorized to supply in 300 geographical areas, covering about 88% of the country’s area, and 98% of its population. In October, the Union government launched the 12th round of bids for seven more geographical areas in five states in the Northeast and the union territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. In a bid to boost natural gas adoption, the Union cabinet has
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