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Abstract:

With a targeted GDP growth rate of 8.5 to 9.5 percent, the energy requirements of India are expected to grow at 5.6- 6.4 percent per annum over the next few years. This implies a four-fold increase in India’s energy requirement over the next 25 years. This poses a significant gap in supply and demand of energy to meet industrial and domestic requirements. Analysis of energy demand and supply suggests that the energy demand is expected to be about 1900 Mtoe by 2040. The current domestic energy production is around 320 Mtoe and is not likely to increase in future. The gas hydrate research and development world over in the last two decades has established that gas hydrates may be a viable potential resource to significantly bridge the energy gap for ensuring the energy security of India in future. The gas hydrates resources are estimated to be about 742,000 trillion cubic feet (tcf) for the world and 66000 tcf for India. These estimates include gas hydrate occurrences in all geologic and reservoir conditions. The gas hydrate research and field tests suggest that sand hosted hydrates are technically feasible for production. Therefore, gas hydrate resources in sand dominated lithologies have been estimated and these are 43000 tcf worldwide and 933 tcf for India. Even these estimates are very significant to sustain the global gas consumption for many centuries. In view of the huge gas hydrate potential, Government of India has launched National Gas Hydrate Program (NGHP) under which gas hydrate research has been carried out in Indian Offshore areas. Two expeditions have been completed and the gas hydrate occurrence and distribution has been established in KG and Andaman deep offshore areas. The recently completed second expedition known as NGHP-02 has discovered two world class potentially producible gas hydrate reservoirs in KG area. Based on the data obtained from second expedition, 134 tcf of gas initially in place in gas hydrates is estimated in KG deep offshore area. The estimated sand hosted gas hydrate resources in Indian Offshore areas of about 933 tcf is equivalent to 23510 Mtoe which is about 15 times of the energy demand – supply gap. This makes gas hydrates as potential new frontier for energy security of India. The talk will address the energy demand-supply scenario of India for the next two decades and the potential of gas hydrates to fill this gap. The gas hydrate research work globally and under NGHP Expeditions 01 and 02 in Indian Offshore will be presented during this seminar. 

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Bio-sketch:

Dr. Pushpendra Kumar is Ph D in Chemistry from University of Allahabad and joined ONGC in 1984. He is currently General Manager & Head-Gas Hydrate Research & Technology Centre, ONGC, Panvel.

Dr. Kumar has carried out the studies and research on natural gas hydrates at Colorado School of Mines, USA during 2002-2003. Dr. Kumar has two decades of experience on gas hydrates and has taken several initiatives such as the preparation of protocol and the action plan for gas hydrate coring/drilling in Indian Offshore, Execution of NGHP Expeditions, Creation of National Gas Hydrate Core Repository and the State-of-the-art Gas Hydrate Laboratory and Establishment of Gas Hydrate Research & Technology Centre (GHRTC) at ONGC Panvel. Dr. Kumar was actively involved in the planning and execution of gas hydrate coring/drilling program in Indian Offshore under NGHP. 

Dr. Kumar was the Project Manager for the recently concluded NGHP Expedition 02 wherein two world class gas hydrate reservoirs have been discovered in KG deep offshore area.

Dr. Kumar led the cooperation program in the area of gas hydrates with National Research Centre (NRC) Canada, Texas A&M University, USA, United States Geological Survey (USGS), United States Department of Energy (USDOE), United States Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (USBOEM) and Japan Government agencies such as AIST & JAMSTEC.

Dr. Kumar was the spotlight scientist in the Winter 2007 issue of Fire-in-the-ice news magazine published by US Department of Energy. Dr. Kumar was invited to Co-chair the Gas Hydrate Session during American Geophysical Union Congress in December 2007 in San Francisco, USA. Dr. Kumar was one of the few experts invited by Noble Laureate Dr. Carlo Rubia, Director-Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, Germany to participate in “Hearing on Gas Hydrates” during 8-9th Nov 2011.

Dr. Kumar has published/presented 69 papers on gas hydrates and other topics in international/ national journals/conferences and workshops. He also has one patent on gas hydrate.

Dr. Kumar has received 23 Awards in last 32 years in ONGC including the OCEANTEX-2010 Award of Excellence for Outstanding Achievements in the R&D in the area of Gas Hydrates.