Indian Gas Exchange Gets Regulatory Nod

The Indian Gas Exchange (IGX), India's first automated delivery-based gas trading platform, which began operations in June, has secured the necessary regulatory authorisation, it said on December 3.

IGX has got the approval to operate as a gas exchange as per the provisions of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (Gas Exchange) Regulations, 2020 for a period of 25 years. The authorisation was given by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), which is India's downstream regulator.

"With this development, IGX has become the first regulated gas exchange in the country,” PNGRB chairman Dinesh Kumar Sarraf said. “The exchange will play an instrumental role in the transparent discovery of gas prices, accelerate investments in the value chain, aid in capacity utilization of pipelines as well as boost consumer confidence and in turn increasing gas demand in the country.”

IGX is incorporated as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX), India's electricity trading platform. It offers trade in five contracts: daily, weekly, weekday, fortnightly and monthly at three physical hubs at Hazira and Dahej in the state of Gujarat and the KG basin in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Since its launch, the total volume traded on the exchange has been 74.6bn Btu.

“As a regulated entity, IGX is poised to further establish and reinforce greater trust and credibility among the market participants. IGX also envisions to create Indian gas benchmark as IEX has done for electricity," IEX chairman Satyanarayan Goel said.