The West Asia war has significantly altered India’s LNG (liquefied natural gas) import basket, with shipments from two of its biggest conventional suppliers declining to zero in April.
India recorded no
supply of LNG from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in April, according to a report by the Financial Express, which cited Kpler data.
In place of the two countries, Oman and Nigeria moved up the pecking order. According to the report, India had imported 1.055 million tonnes of LNG in January from Qatar.
This quantity declined to 765,000 tonnes in February and just 60,000 tonnes in March, the first full month affected by the war between the United States-Israel and Iran.
However, in April, LNG supply from Qatar came to a complete halt as the country faced intense attacks on its energy infrastructure along with a choked Strait of Hormuz.
Similarly, LNG supply from the UAE in January stood at 403,000 tonnes, which declined to 131,000 tonnes in March. The Gulf nation dropped out of India’s import basket in April.
As supplies from the two major energy partners came to a standstill, India’s LNG imports from countries like Oman, Nigeria, and Angola rose sharply over the last four months.
In January, Oman shipped about 222,000 tonnes of natural gas to India. The quantity rose to 585,000 tonnes in April, a jump of 160 percent. The country became the largest LNG supplier to India in the previous month.
Supplies from Nigeria also rose from 280,000 tonnes in January to 328,000 tonnes in March. The shipments further increased in April to 482,000 tonnes.
Angola contributed about 275,000 tonnes to India’s LNG basket during the month.
Qatar was the biggest supplier of LNG to India before the start of the war. Qatar’s Ras refinery, the country’s largest LNG export unit, was among the first energy assets that came under attack from Iran in March.
Since then, India has been facing an energy crisis. The country has diversified its LNG basket since then.
