Natural Gas: A Geographical Outlook by D.Dhanapal (1990) in The Indian Geographical Journal Vol.65, No.2

A portion of the Article:
D.Dhanapal (1990). "Natural Gas: A Geographical Outlook", The Indian Geographical Journal, Vol. 65, No.2, December 1990. pp.154-165.
Wastage of Natural Gas in India:
A large amount of natural is gas is flared in India every year. From 1970-71 to 1987-88, 75.31 billion cubic meters of natural gas was produced, out of which 37.29 billion cubic meters of natural gas was flared (Table 6). It means that roughly half (49.5%) of the natural gas is wasted due to flaring. What a colossal waste! Though the proportion of flaring the natural gas has come down from 52% in 1970-71 to 30% in 1987-88, the amount of natural gas flared has gone up from 0.76 billion cubic meters in 1970-71 to 3.44 billion cubic meters in 1987-88 (Table 6).

In India, roughly 30-50% of the natural gas is flared up into the air. At the same time, India imports more than 1.5 lakh metric tons of LPG every year to meet the LPG demand. So,concrete steps must be taken to rectify this peculiar situation and to use this resource judiciously. For instance, the following steps must be taken immediately: i) erection of new pipe lines with the technical cooperation of expert countries ii) speeding up the new exploration activities in river bed and sedimentary areas. iii) erection of more LPG bottling plants ( the present 61 plants are not sufficient) to meet the LPG demand iv) developing the technology to use the natural gas in stead of oil in road vehicles so as to reduce our oil import and save foreign exchange.

Courtesy: Indian Jouranal of Geography. For full article: Refer Geography Department Library, Madras University, Madras and the author: georesourcecentre@gmail.com
Technical Assistance to digitise: Geo Resource Centre and All India Dr. Ambethkar Trust

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