India wants to renegotiate the long-term contract price of LNG it buys from Qatar, according to Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Currently, India imports 8.5 million tonnes of LNG annually under long-term supply deals with Qatar.
As Mr. Pradhan noted, India should re-examine the pricing mechanism of the long-term natural gas deal with Qatar. Responding, Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad Sherida al-Kaabi said that they are looking into ways to increase the collaboration between the two countries.
Currently, Reuters reports that delivered spot prices to Indian ports are around half of those under the long-term LNG deals, thus negatively affecting the appeal of the Qatar supply contracts for price sensitive Indian consumers.
What is more, during 2015, India renegotiated the contract price of LNG imported from Qatar to half of what it was paying earlier.
This decision comes as India wants to raise the share of natural gas in its energy mix to 15% by 2030 from 6.5% that it is today.
