The price of domestically produced natural gas in the country is expected to more than double — in the range of 100-120 per cent — for the first half of the next fiscal year, beginning April. This will be the highest price since government introduced the New Domestic Gas Pricing Guidelines in November 2014.

Sources added that the price revision of producing gas from challenging areas — Deepwater, Ultra Deepwater and High Pressure-High Temperature fields — is also expected to be revised upwards by 65-70 per cent.

Based on the percentages, the domestic gas prices are likely to be revised in the range of $6.1-6.4 per mBtu (million British thermal unit). Similarly, price from difficult fields is expected in the range of $10.13-10.42 per mBtu.

Before this, the highest gas price was recorded for November 2014-March 2015 at $5.05 per mBTU. The highest ceiling price for gas from challenging fields was recorded for April 2019-September 2019 at $9.32 per mBtu.

Domestic natural gas prices are revised on a bi-annual basis —April-September and October-March — through the administered pricing mechanism (APM), which is based on gas prices in the international markets of the US, Canada and Russia (Henry Hub, Alberta Gas Reference and Russia Gas).

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) calculates average international gas prices for the preceding year and is further calculated with a lag of one quarter.

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