It’s a known phenomenon that natural gas is the cleaner choice of fuel as compared to oil, but not much of us know that gas imports are cheaper as well. Natural gas imports cost almost $3/mmBtu cheaper than crude oil.
Oil imports contribute almost 75% of the total oil consumption whereas when it comes to natural gas consumption, only 35% of imported gas is accounted in the nation’s total gas consumption. India’s crude oil import bill rose from Rs 3,75,227 crorse as accounted in the year 2009-10 to Rs 6,72,220 crorse in 2011-12. On the contrary India imports around 12 million tonnes of LNG per year and its set to rise to 40mtpa in the coming 3-5 years. In the fiscal year 2011-12 cost of average gas imported was around $13.22/mmBtu whereas the average cost of crude oil during the same year was $19.28/mmBtu.
source: GasBuddy.com
So if 50% of crude oil is substituted with LNG the savings would amount to around $2.34 billion. Also the carbon emission would fall remarkably.