India's bet on gas-based economy runs into Ukraine war challenges

As the Ukraine-Russia conflict pushes up prices and Europe outbids South Asia for scarce supplies, billions of dollars in domestic gas infrastructure investment are at risk

Last week, Petroleum Minister Hardeep Puri dedicated 166 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations spread across India. “In 2014 the country had only about 900 CNG stations. Today we have 4,500 CNG stations with plans to take this number to 8,000 in the next two years. The number of PNG (piped natural gas) connections has also crossed 95 lakh compared to about 24 lakh in 2014,” Puri said.

What was left unsaid, and perhaps unaccounted for, were the consequences of an armed conflict raging 5,000 kilometres away, and its impact on the price of gas for a Mumbai CNG taxi wallah.