India Will Increase Dependence on Unconventional Energy

India will have to increasingly rely on unconventional energy sources such as shale gas and coal bed methane in coming years, ONGC’s Director (Exploration), Narendra K. Verma said.

He added that the state owned firm is also gearing up to increasingly exploit these resources, Business Line newspaper quoted him.

Verma was delivering an endowment lecture in Andhra University on Wednesday on “Unconventionals - the new frontiers of hydrocarbon exploration”.

He said ONGC had got the technologies for horizontal drilling but it would be a costly proposition at present to exploit shale gas. It would require factory-mode of production and land and water — precious resources in an overpopulated country like India — would have to be diverted for the purpose.

Verma said coal-bed methane (CBM) was also very important and ONGC had already forayed into it, Business Line reported.

On the technological aspect, he said the technologies used in the US could either be replicated or they could be used with some modifications, but “we have to address the other issues and challenges first”.

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