NEW DELHI (Gulf Times) — Qatar will increase liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies to India to 7.5mn tons a year from June 2009, compared with 5mn a year now, and India wants an extra 1.2 million tons, Qatar’s Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Energy and Industry HE Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said on Friday.

Qatar, the biggest producer of LNG in the Middle East, is supplying LNG to India under a 25-year contract signed in July 1999. India began importing the cleaner alternative to coal and crude oil, in 2004.

India, Asia’s third-largest oil consumer and fourth-biggest economy, is also seeking an extra 1.2 million tons of short-term LNG supplies from Qatar to meet soaring demand. “Hopefully, by June 2009 delivery of the 2.5 million n tons of LNG will start,” al-Attiyah told reporters after meeting with India’s Petroleum Minister Murli Deora. “We have not finalized the additional supply of 1.2 million tons.”

Deora said the two countries were still negotiating on the price of gas but expected an agreement soon.

India, which imports 70% of its crude oil requirements and is able to supply only half of its gas demand of 170 million cubic meter a day, has been aggressively hunting for long-term oil and gas supplies.

Al-Attiyah, who also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said India was the largest buyer of LNG from Qatar and his country would look favorably at selling more to India.

He said Qatar planned to increase its LNG output to 77 million tons by 2010 from 30 million tons now, to meet a rapid rise in demand from a number of countries.

“Even with the rise in our production, we feel it will be difficult to meet the demand from so many countries. Almost all of our LNG is sold out,” al-Attiyah said.

He said Japan, South Korea and India were the top three markets for Qatar’s LNG and China had initiated talks with it.

India expects to import the additional supply of LNG starting 2010-11, MS Srinivasan, secretary to India’s petroleum ministry, said last month. More supplies from Qatar will help India restart gas-fired power plants that are shut because of lack of the fuel.

Almost half of India’s 10,000 MW of gas-fired power generation capacity is lying idle, according to the power ministry. Lack of assured gas supplies has led India to scale down its power production plan.

India, which had sought to build 41,110 MW of new power in the five years to March 2007, lowered the target to 36,956 MW in a mid-term appraisal of the five-year plan that began in 2002.

India’s LNG consumption may rise from between 6 million tons and 7 million tons a year now to 30 million tons by 2013, driven by economic growth and increasing demand from power producers, SC Sharma, chief commercial officer of Petronet LNG Ltd, said in June.