Indian energy minister urging cooperation with Japan on long-term LNG deals

The Indian minister for power, coal, new & renewable energy and mines, Piyush Goyal, is urging cooperation between India and Japan on long-term contracts with a defined cost of energy for liquefied natural gas (LNG), which would be a stabilizing factor for the renewable energy thrust that India is currently giving.

India’s power demand is expected to expand four-fold in the next 15 years to become one of the largest energy markets globally and it would open immense business opportunities for Japan, the minister said, speaking on the sidelines of the seventh India-Japan Energy Forum in New Delhi.

Being a major LNG importer, India has been advocating cooperation between Asian LNG buyers in order to get better deals in the global market.

Large Asian LNG buyers, including India, could benefit by joining hands and thereby, possibly, bring in more equitable trade deals, said Indian oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan during the fifth IEF – IGU Ministerial Gas Forum that was held in New Delhi last year on the sidelines of Petrotech 2016.

Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), India’s largest state-owned natural gas processing and distribution company, and Sumitomo Corporation, one of Japan’s major integrated trading and investment business enterprises, agreed to work together in 2014 in the fields of gas procurement and petrochemicals.