In our International Energy Outlook 2023 (IEO2023), we project natural gas consumption to more than triple in India by 2050.
We project annual growth of 4.4% over that period, more than twice the 2.0% annual growth rate of natural gas consumption in China, the next-fastest-growing country.
We project that India’s industrial sector—in particular, ammonia production intended to decrease fertilizer imports—as well as a growing oil refining sector will drive most of the growth in natural gas consumption over the projection period.
This growth in demand will require more significant increases in India’s domestic natural gas supply and imports than in recent years.
According to the International Energy Agency, India’s domestic natural gas production increased 2.4% annually on average between 2019 and 2022 as imports declined 1.5% annually.
In 2022, 7.0 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas was consumed across the residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, and electric power sectors.
In 2022, the industrial sector accounted for more than 70% of total consumption, followed by the electric power sector at 17%. By 2050, we project natural gas consumption to rise in India to 23.2 Bcf/d.
Among India’s five consuming sectors, we project the industrial sector’s share of natural gas consumption will grow the most, rising to 80% of total consumption, followed by the transportation sector rising to 10%.
In 2022, about half of the natural gas consumption in India’s industrial sector was used to produce basic chemicals, mostly ammonia for fertilizer.
The Indian government’s stated policy to develop self-sufficiency in the production of urea, a nitrogenous fertilizer produced from ammonia, drives much of our projected increase in natural gas demand.
Natural gas is a key input for urea production.
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