In a statement Aiyar said, “With the demand for petroleum products increasingly outstripping supply, India urgently needed to substitute oil with natural gas. India’s oil discovery and production is [also] growing at just 7%-8% annually, and the self-reliance ratio might decline to just 15% in the next decade.”
“In such a scenario, we need to concentrate on tapping the gas reserves in Bay of Bengal, right from the Tamil Nadu coast to Northeast and the Myanmar coast, including the Bangladesh coast.
“[I call] for greater investment in the exploration and production of natural gas across the eastern coast. So much gas is available off the eastern coast that Bay of Bengal has the potential to emerge as the North Sea of the East,” he added.
